Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 97: Munya Chawawa

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

Instagram sensation and satirist Munya Chawawa is this week’s guest. But, as he has another restaurant booking to get to, will he leave us wanting more?Follow Munya on Twitter and Instagram: @munyachawawaVisit Munya’s website munyachawawa.comRecorded by and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive Productions.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, biting into the sweet flesh of chat and spitting out the pips of truth. Hello, James Acaster. A little bit of a spit there. Yeah, a little bit of a bite. I bit into it and then I spit out all the pips. Hello, Ed Gamble. Hello, hello. I was just even thinking about eating a grape with seeds in it made me feel sick then. Yeah, don't see the point. Why are there grapes with seeds in them still? If we've got the technology to grow, now here's a stupid question. We grow seedless grapes, right? Yeah. They've not worked

out a way to take them all out before they put them in the bag. Well, there's the whole thing, isn't it? Of like, well, how do you, people have said it forever. How do you grow seedless grapes? What do you plant to grow a seedless grape? Yeah. People have always said that. But I don't think they suck out the pips any other way, do they? That would put me off grapes if I found out there's a guy sucking out all the pips before he sends them to me. Yeah, I wouldn't like that. No. So, I'm not sure really. But then, yeah, I hate biting into a grape and suddenly there's the pips there. No, thank you. And then you swallow it. You swallow a pip and then you're like, is it a bunch of grapes going to grow in my tum tum? That's scary. Yeah. What tree bush or plant

would you, if you had to have one growing in your tummy, what would it, what would it be? Chocolate? Like a cacao plant. Yeah, that'd be great. But you're imagining it growing full bars of chocolate? Well, I just growing all the chocolate and then the chocolate falls off and then I digest it all. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I don't have time. I don't have time to go through that. So, this is the off menu podcast, James. What happens on this? We have a guest in the dream restaurant and we asked them their favorite ever, start a main course, side dish, drink, and dessert. And this week, our special guest is Munya Chihuahua. Munya Chihuahua, he is a, he's an online comedian, does a lot of stuff on Instagram, does a lot of videos and character

and sketch stuff. Yep, he was in Dane Baptiste's famous show, which if you haven't watched that, I don't know if it's still on iPlay or not, but it's very good. You should watch that as well. Munya was very funny in it. And we're thrilled to have him in the dream restaurant. However, if he says the secret ingredient that we deem to be a bad ingredient that we don't like, we will kick him out of the restaurant. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We'll take no pleasure in it. Let's make it great with seeds in it. I think we've done that already, James. Oh, well, just goes to show we haven't changed. We still don't like grapes with seeds in it to this day. Yeah, exactly. We stand by that. How about, James, the one we've agreed on,

which is mung beans? Yeah, mung beans. I don't like them. I think they stink. I don't know. I mean, why would you call something that people are supposed to like that? Mung beans, it sounds bad. It sounds like they're disgusting. Right. On a matter of fact, they're just phonetically. It doesn't sound that bad. Mung makes me think ming and ming makes me think minger. And the things that you say, something's minging if it's not nice. Minging beans, that's what it makes me think. Well, you've made it worse now. I just asked that like the way they smell. Yeah, fair enough. They smell damp and horrible.

They smell minging. Up to you. Well, anyway, if Munger says mung beans, and the thing is, M-U-N, Munger. We're luring him in. We're luring him in there. I say it every time. A guest always picks a food that is the same first three letters as their name. That's what most of us are favourite food is. That's why I love jam. You love jam. And you love... Edimame beans. Edimame beans. And Benito loves... Ben, toe boxes. Ben-toe boxes. That's his favourite food. We're very good at improv on this podcast. That's the good thing about it.

Yeah. If you like improv, listen to the rest of this episode. We're going to be firing on all cylinders. This is the off-medium menu of Munger Chihuahua. Munger Chihuahua. Welcome, Munger, to the Dream Restaurant. Yes. Wonderful. Welcome, Munger Chihuahua to the Dream Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time. I know. I like to be fashionably late. I like to leave you waiting. Oh, yeah? It's what A-list celebs do. That's true. Exactly. You've met a lot of A-listers, right?

They keep you waiting? Well, I mean, speaking of celebs I've met, Ed actually prepared me for my first and only stand-up gig. And you thought I wouldn't remember this as if you thought every day I'm being interviewed by someone who's asking me for stand-up tips because they're about to do their stand-up gig. I just assumed that you might have wiped traumatic memories like this out of your consciousness, but no, there it is as clear as day. Shall I tell you what happened? Because, James, you seem baffled. I didn't know this happened. And, you know, I'm interested to hear what about Ed's tutorial and teaching techniques

made you quit after one gig. So, yes, please. I mean, if you know the plot of Karate Kid, it's basically that in comedy form. But essentially what happened is I was working at a TV channel and I was a producer on the show, so I was writing the scripts, but I also realised I had the power to write myself into the show. So, I really wanted to try stand-up, but I wanted a situation in which it was completely reasonable that I failed spectacularly. And so I went to the bosses and I was like, guys, how crazy is this? What if we did this idea where some randomer just learns to become a stand-up comedian in like eight weeks and then he goes and does a show? Wouldn't that be hilarious?

Because then if it goes bad, you know, well or badly, it's going to be great TV. And they went, that is a good idea. Who could we, you know, who could we do that with? And I was like, I don't know, me. And sure enough, we started to basically get comedians in each week who would then impart some comedic knowledge to me. Ed came in and I forget what we talked about. It was about charisma, I think. It was about charisma on stage. That is what they say about it anyway. Yeah. Pure charisma. He was teaching me sort of, you know, profound your chest and this and that. Don't go too overblown. Just get the perfect medium, this, that and the other.

Yeah. Because as we all know, the main thing about my comedy is my chest is so puffed out. It is actually. To lose the pigeon of the comedy world. We can't actually sit people in the front row at my gigs because my chest sticks so far out over the top of the stage. Yeah. Walk about like Foghorn Leghorn. Yeah. I mean, yeah. The guys were constantly having just to move the tripods back just because of the pure peck to lens action that was happening. Yeah. But anyway, yes. So a few weeks later, I went and did my gig. It was five minutes. So really the window for me to fail was very, very small. And I'm pleased to say it went exceptionally well. It was a student night.

So it's top secret comedy club in Soho. Great night. Student night. They're all up for a laugh. And the first guy who went on was this just Larry Scottish guy. He had them in the palm of his hand. Second person went on. They were amazing. I was absolutely petrified because I thought, oh, look, I want everyone to do well, but the third person needs to be shit, please. Just so I can then sort of raise the bar back up a little bit. And yeah, sure enough, the third person went on and, you know, made a load of jokes about some sort of national treasure, maybe Mary Berry or something. And then I came on and sort of started telling jokes about Zimbabwe and dictators. And it turns out that was just what was needed to lift the mood. So thanks,

thanks, Mugabe. Did you puff your chest out? Did you remember to puff your chest out? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Most of the gig was actually just looking at my chin for the people in the front row. Yeah. So, Ed, thank you so much, man. It's the first time I've been able to say this, but I was waiting for this opportunity. My abiding memory of the interview was I was quite horrible about your material, actually. I think I was quite, I think I was quite mean, right? I was quite mean to you about the whole thing. Ed was like, here's what you've got to do. You've got to lose loads of weight and then do loads of material about how you lost the weight. That's what you've got to do. That's what I did. And where's that chest? Where the hell is that chest?

That's backing your body. Puff that out. Oh, man, but it paid off. And, you know, Ed, I'm just, I can't wait for lockdown to lift so that I can pencil in our next lesson on making sure your knees are at the right angle. Exactly. Well, I like that. I, you know, I try to impart some of my knowledge to you to do live stand-up. And you responded by doing one gig and then just sort of doing quite a lot of online viral work and not needing to bother with live stuff. Yes. I mean, it's easier to do online because, you know, you never actually hear whether people laugh or whether there is dead silence. You know, you kind of just, the only indication is kind of like whether people have clicked like on a little red heart. So I feel like that is way less daunting.

But I am going to try and do some more stand-up when I finish for sure. Just quite, I just find it terrifying. Find it terrifying because once I interviewed another comedian and he said to me, have you ever tried stand-up? And I said, oh, you know, I did one. And he said, no, no, you've got to do a few, you know, do a few and then you're going to find out how, you know, whether you really like it when it's really for you. And I said, okay, well, how many do you suggest? And he said, you know, once you've done about 350, you'll know. You can do 350 gigs to find out whether I like something. I said, I'm going to leave it to you. Well, I don't know who this person was who you interviewed, but let me tell you, they do not enjoy stand-up and they're trying to draw you into

their sad world. They're like, you should do it. Do 350 of them. Just stop being a successful viral sensation on the internet. Start doing stand-up gigs like me and hate your life. Our first question is usually still all sparked in water and you've already been clogging some water. Is that some water in that little flask you've got there? Are you one of those guys who always has a flask of water? Carry that around all day long? Well, it's a, I'm sure you know, people who use recyclable bottles just seem to sort of plague human existence by constantly screen the lid. So that's one of the downfalls of saving penguins. But no, in my recyclable bottle, I just have tap water, which is very edgy of me because

I have an extremely sensitive stomach. Really, they say you shouldn't drink tap water because of the stuff that's in it. But you know, I come from Zimbabwe where most days it was kind of like pure malaria coming out. So to come into England and to be able to just drink from the tap without risk of, well, death is actually fantastic. And that's why I drink it from the tap. But in a restaurant, if I had the luxury, I probably would go still because I think if you go sparkling, there's just something wrong with you. It might as well lick a plug socket because there's nothing pleasant about the sort of electrical sensation of sparkling and you can't, it's not quenching. Matt, you really do have a sensitive stomach if you think bubbles are the equivalent of licking a

plug. But listen, what I'm trying to say is you can't, when you're really thirsty, no one goes, oh, God, I could just have some sparkling water now because it's, you know, it's an emotional battle to get each gulp down because of the gas. It's like a one in one out policy, isn't it? Trying to gulp sparkling water. So you think the bubbles represent a one in one out policy with other air in your body? Yeah, basically. Right. So you see your body as a nightclub of oxygen. Oh, that's what I, I mean, that's my Tinder bio. A nightclub of oxygen. So the little, the bubbles are people who want to go in and dance in your body. So you have to kick out some of the other oxygen particles before you can let them in because of the fire regulations. Exactly. When you say it like that,

yes, I admit it sounds a bit strange, but essentially, yes. I just feel like sparkling water, people do it to be bougie, but it's not actually a pleasant experience. I mean, what do you like to drink sparkling water? I have done it in the past. But like, you know, I wouldn't, when I have drunk sparkling water, I wouldn't describe it as an electric sensation. Or an emotional battle. I haven't been zapped by it before. But I understand for you, it's more of a, it's a bit, it's a bit full on. It's a bit like an electric shock that would wake you up because you're sensitive stomach. What are the emotions that you go through in the battle? So it's, if you can just transport yourself there now, so you take a sip, what's this emotional battle?

What does it, what does it consist of? His eyes are closed. Okay. So first of all, it's just the tearing, the fear of feeling your, your throat being torn to pieces by these needlessly erratic bubbles. Yeah. And then, you know, it sinks down into your stomach and you can feel this sort of gurgling sensation. You think, you know, what is going on is then it's embarrassment. It's like, can anyone else hear that? You know, and then it's shame. Yeah. As the sort of one in one out policy really comes into effect. Yeah. So this is not a pleasant experience for me, boys, you know. No, not at that time. When you ask me, even just the word sparkling is, I'm, I don't know if you can see, but my top lip is trembling. So the one, the one in one out policy. Yeah. Can I just,

do you mean you do loads of tiny little farts, but one for every bubble that you take in? Good question, actually. Well, sometimes you save them up because sometimes you've got to look for that window of opportunity. You know, every, every throat clear from the opposite person is an opportunity. So very much when I sit down for dinner with people, I'm asking myself, how much does this person clear their throat? Yeah. That's going to make my night a lot easier. So you're waiting for them to cough. You're waiting for them to cough. And then you go far, and then everyone thinks that guy coughing smells like shit. He's coughing out shit. I love that you're waiting for them to cough as well. You're not thinking I'll clear my throat

and do it under that. You're like, I've got to wait for them to do it. Oh God. No, no, no, no. I think if you combine it with clearing your own throat, there's a lot going on there. And I feel like, you know, it could become more than a fart, which is, which is a worst case scenario. Not that it's ever happened, but, you know, take these kind of precautions. It's not one in everybody out. I don't want it to be the case that this nightclub just happens to be operating when it closes and everyone has to rush out. So, you know, it's a very strategic process. Why Tom Cruise hasn't made a Mission Impossible film about this, I don't know.

Yeah. She had to make one. And he's just staring at the guy who's having dinner with us and praying that he coughs. Please, clear your throat. I need to fart so bad. I was very offended by your assumption, James, that my farts stink of shit. I'm sorry. That's very, very presumptive of you. Well, you know, it's pretty common. I mean, sparkling water isn't that aromatic though. Well, I didn't think you were farting out the spark in water. I thought it was one in one out basis so that the bubbles are going in and different bubbles and air bubbles are coming out of your butt that have been in there for a while. Yeah, but I don't survive off of like aero bars or something. Like I don't survive off

of bubbly food. So, hold on. Is it only the bubbly food that turns into bubbles and has to leave your body? It's not just other food in general that might be converted into gas. I thought this was a food podcast, not a biology exam. I don't know. All I know is... I just don't think it's only aero bars and sparkling water that would do this. God, we need to get an expert on the show. Where do you stand on aero bars then? Whispers and stuff. Do you not eat those because one in one out policy? Well, there's no electric sensation with aeros. You know, the whole marketing point is the bubbles melt in your mouth. You know, not the bubbles electrocute you as they go down. Yeah. So, already there's a contrast to sparkling water. So, I try not to tarnish all bubbly

food items with the same brush. Do you know what I mean? That's good of you. Do you know what? I'm going to say bread. I'm going to say it for two reasons. Number one, I had a traumatic experience with poppadums where my dad tried... There's a pattern here. My dad's not good. All right, he's a Zimbabwean guy. Zimbabwean food is all right. You know what I mean? Like, if you go to Italy, you get pasta, you go to Spain, you get paella. In Zimbabwe, the main dish is kind of like this big lump of maize, which you put with a bit of vegetables, a bit of meat. It can taste nice, but you know, it's not the kind of height of culinary perfection. So anyway, my dad one day said, I'm going to make a curry. Now, I mean, the curry itself was basically

just chunks of meat floating around in like a brown liquid. But my dad had obviously seen poppadums before, but just didn't know where do you get them? How do you make them? So, when I sit down for this curry now, there's just a ball of quavers in the middle of the table. And just cheesy quavers with this sort of meaty gloop. That was enough to put me off of poppadums for life. Had he made the quavers? Or did he buy them? Just a packet of quavers and put them in there? Yeah, he did bought them. Just bought them. I mean, I obviously love that. And I love that it's put you off poppadums, even though it was just a ball of quavers. Yeah, but just the sensation of the like this cheesy taste with this curry. It's just I don't

want to know what a real poppadum tastes like now. Sure. It's been putting your head. Was it something for years that would get bought up a lot of the time, the quavers? Or was your dad quite sensitive about it? Didn't want to be made fun of? No, he's very sensitive about that. He was convinced that he would go on to Dragon's Den with these. Basically, you know, this white stuff, I told you this sad stuff, which is like this ball of maize. He thought that he had come up with this idea where if you put the pan into like a searingly hot heat and it starts to burn the outside, that he'd created sort of like a mazy Malteser. And he was like, no, guys, trust me, this is going to take us on Dragon's Den. And it's going to be amazing. Like, don't tell anyone about this.

Don't tell anyone about sands of balls. I was like, I'm not going to. Don't worry. So a lot of my cooking, my cooking anxiety comes from my dad for sure. Sorry. What was his idea? Was that he would get a ball of maize, put it in a searing hot pan and burn the outside of it. And that was the product of making Malteser. That's the product. Because you're not used to having crispy sands. So it was the fact that something that we've grown up knowing as soft is suddenly now crispy. Yes. So no one was doing that. Yeah, sands of balls. So he'd really reinvented the sands of wheel. But it's the fact that so I kind of don't mind the fact he's come up with that and called him sands of balls. I think

that's great. But what I like is that he thinks he can take it on Dragon's Den. It's not a product. It's not. It's something that anyone could do at home. So it's just an idea that here's a suggestion. Why not get your sands of ball and put it on the searing hot heat and burn it all the way down. So it's crispy, but he's gone, I can sell this. But he's just selling a suggestion to people. Yeah, like any good businessman would. Sure. Presumably on Dragon's Den, he'd be explaining to them what sands are is to start with, right? So they'd have to get over that hurdle and then he'd have to go, but imagine it different. Imagine this thing you've never heard of different. Okay, you're not bought into it. I can say, how about a poppadum?

Yeah. Bring in the Quavers. A packet of Quavers that I bought from the shop on the way here. Here's my idea. Give some of the packet of Quavers and call them poppadums. That's my new idea. So you would go bread though. I'm so specific about bread though. When I have toast, this has caused a big controversy before. So one day I was made some toast and then I posted it on my Instagram. I was like, this is how we all eat toast, right? And the thing is when I make toast, I don't like the butter to melt into the toast. I like the toast to be cold and rock hard, but still toast and then to layer the butter as a solid over the top of it. But apparently that's a war crime,

but that is how I like my toast. It's not how people do it, to be fair. Firstly, I really like how offhand you are with, obviously, you're online more than us. I made some toast and obviously went to put it on my Instagram. Now, but this is just a one-off. I'm not usually, you know, I don't usually, you know, put such frivolous matters on there. But on this one occasion, I was just getting some funny looks from my housemates and I thought, you know, what's wrong with them? And then I put it on there and I thought, wow, okay, this is actually an issue people have. Because really, if your butter melts, you're not tasting the butter, you know, you're just tasting

like this sort of liquidy oil. Yeah, I like to taste the butter. When I was a kid, I actually used to eat butter out of the fridge. My mum had to stop me. How old were you when you stopped eating butter out of the fridge? What was the date yesterday? Now it's about, I was probably about maybe seven. When Ed was destroying your material when he was mentoring you, this is the kind of stuff you wanted to hear. Yeah, I would have loved that. About your days of eating butter out of the fridge, you would have said, put that in the sack. I kind of agree with the taste in the butter thing. Like, so if I have toast, if I'm really going for it, I will have hot toast, but the butter will be cold and straight out the fridge. So it'll be sort of layers of butter

that is melting a little bit, but you'll still be able to see it as solid bits of butter. I like that. I like that too. It's a different taste, isn't it? Best toast I ever had is grilling it under the grill proper, not doing it in the toaster. And the second time when I flipped it over to do the second side, I put the butter on top of it then, grill it with the butter on it, and do loads of butter. Let the butter completely just soak the whole bread and then chomp it up. Delicious. And then I taste the butter. I taste the butter, baby. But then it's just soggy, isn't it? No, it's not just soggy because it's been under the grill at the same time. So it's still crispy, toast, but you've got that rich butter. Like fried bread, I guess. You also can't have chomp it up

as part of your recipe. Chomp it up goes for all of these recipes. You can't go in my recipe, you eat it at the end. Chomping is different, isn't it? Chomp, chomp, chomp. It's an onomatopoeic thing. Not all food goes chomp, chomp, chomp. You wouldn't be able to do that, though, because if your bread was grilled, it would be completely sodden in butter. Yeah. So you wouldn't even be chomping, you'd be slurping your toast. You'd be drinking it. Believe me, it's a chomp, guys. Just take my word for it. I was chomp, chomp, chomping it. I like chunks. I like chunks of butter. Okay. But would you like what Munya described there of having cold toast with blocks of, with a layer of just cold butter on top of it? I don't like the cold toast. I'd rather have just bread,

untoasted bread with the chunks of butter. Yeah, I'm down for that as well. But cold toast, cold toast feels sad to me. But the reason I have it toasted, I have to have it toasted, is because you know, as a fellow butterfiend, you'll know that when you're trying to put butter onto raw bread, it just, when you try and scrape the butter, it rips a hole in the bread. So the toast is more of a procedural thing as opposed to a preference, do you know what I mean? So you are spreading it? I am spreading it, yeah. Because I thought you were just slicing it and then laying it on like cheese, like a cheese sandwich. No, I'm not maniac. No, no, no. I'll put a slab on and then sort of scrape it evenly across. Yeah, I think you're toasting it almost

not for the temperature or the taste, but for the structural integrity. So you can then spread the butter on top of it. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Well, I'm okay with that element of it. Yeah. Okay, good. I'm glad we found the middle ground. So is that what you, is that what you want for your bread course here? You want cold toast with a thick layer of butter? In an ideal world, yes. And if not, a piece of bread that is completely consumed by butter, but there's no rips in the actual fiber of the bread. I think we're going to have to give you the toast because that sounds like it should go to. It's your specialty. That's my, that's my happy place. Is that what you take on Dragon's Den? Yeah. Cold toast. With the sands of ball crushed in between two pieces.

Let's go on to your starter. I don't know why I'm preemptively laughing at it. I'm just finding every, everything so far has said more and more about you and I'm looking forward to So this one is actually, I don't have a life story perhaps behind this one, but I'm going to pick Aaron Cheney. Okay. Risotto inside some breadcrumbs or whatever. It's an Italian sands of ball. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You basically, you're sticking two fingers up to the old man on this way. Don't tell George. Oh God. George is actually, George is my dad's name, but my dad randomly changes his, he sporadically changes his names, depending on what his mood is. Wait, let me explain. My dad's name, my dad's name was, was phallot, right?

Which for some reason sounds like a measurement of land. Anyway, one day was at this ladies house in Zimbabwe and she went, Oh, do you know that phallot means heart operation in whatever, German or something? From that moment, my dad said, no way. I'm not being called for, I'll not have this as my name. So he changed it to George. He was George for a little while. And then I remember one day being on the way to church and he was like, you know, my son, I really just want, want to change. And I was reading this picture Bible at the time and I was like, you know, what about Jacob? You know, Jacob seemed to be like a right lap. Your suggested one stuff. From the Bible. And he just went, yeah, I'm going to be called Jacob. And he just changed his name

to Jacob in all of his documentation, not legally, but just, he just wouldn't respond when people were shouting George at him. And is he George again now? Or is he, is he Jacob? No, he's, he's, he's still Jacob. So I'm not going to tell him I did a podcast with Ed and James otherwise he would be like, Oh, that's a nice name. But now why am I getting distracted? So yeah. Right. So Aaron Cheney, because I made it recently, I don't like making Aaron Cheney because, you know, you've got to cut, you end up with your hands covered in like this panko breadcrumb crust, which, you know, as a former, uh, ex-matic, someone with X, you know, it's dramatic memories for me, but I enjoy eating it. Yeah. The only thing is no one ever told me in the book it said, you know,

you're making Aaron Cheney balls. It didn't specify the size. Now, obviously, this is an audio medium. I just want the listener to know that the size of the money estimated there with his hands was about twice the size of his own head. So I'm looking forward to the story. You know, no one told you the size. When I went to, when I went to this market, it was literally last weekend, I went to this market and that market, I saw the Aaron Cheney, give me these tiny like golf ball sized things. And I said, you know, is this your Aaron Cheney? They said, yeah, this is the size it's meant to be. Well, two weeks ago, I was eating these bowling balls full of rice. I was thinking that was the size that I meant to be. So yeah, I've only experienced true Aaron

Cheney once, but I like the big ones anyway. And someone who's so like, you know, you do so much stuff online, you would think you would Google this kind of thing. You see your whole, your whole life, making videos and posting stuff and it's all like being on top of social media. And that's what your whole career depends on. Have you finger on the pulse on the internet, make an Aaron Cheney? I won't Google any of this. I will just guess I'll have this bowling ball and I'll eat that. That's like a sensible size. Love it. And then like, yeah, go to the market. What the hell is this? I asked for an Aaron Cheney, please. Not a little taster. I tried to do it old school. I tried to use a cookery book. So, you know, the thing with

cookery books is sometimes they don't put a picture into each recipe. You know, it's only the chef's favorites. So, you know, I didn't have a reference point, but it looked crispy. It tasted of rice inside. So, I thought, you know, the size doesn't even matter. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. So, is your Aaron Cheney that you wanted your starter? Yeah. So, first of all, what kind of Aaron Cheney is it? But also, is it made by you or is it the stuff you had at the market or somewhere else? And also, what size is it? I think it's the main question. Obviously, what size is it? Yeah.

I'm thinking, do you know what? Because I want to leave room for my main course. I'm going to have the smaller ones. Is it, when you say what flavor do I want it, would you mean what kind of things you're putting? They're different types. They have different things in it and stuff. And what am I wrong about? Oh, really? Like what? No, I think you're right. I think it's like, you can have different things within it. Like, you could have mushroom in it. There could be ham in it. There could be, you know.

Okay. I'm going to have mushroom in it. But hold on. What have you had in the past? No, to be fair, I had dried and wet mushrooms because I didn't know that there were separate things. I didn't know you had to soak the mushrooms for them to be, you know, you get these dried fungi or whatnot, soak them in water, chop them up, put them in. I just skimmed the recipe and it said, you know, get your chopped dried mushrooms and then get your chopped wet mushrooms later in the recipe. So my assumption was, oh, I put in all of them. So I just sort of doubled up on mushroom.

Reminds me of my first meal at university, actually, where I was so anxious about going broke that for my first meal at university, I had mashed potato with chips with roast potatoes because I thought each potato would bring something different to the meal, but it didn't. So I'm going to have mushroom arantini. Okay, nice. Yeah, that sounds fair. We sort of glossed over that you don't normally like making things with breadcrumbs because you used to have eczema. It's a sensation of it, though. So it reminds you of when you had eczema, when you've got breadcrumbs all over your hands. Yeah, because it's like, you know, your hands are all crackly and just, you know, just shed in

everywhere. Yeah. It's not a good time. So you get the flashbacks that you start having to put E45 on your hands and say, no, this is just breadcrumbs. No, what have I done? But it even worse. But you know what I mean, though? When you're cooking, I always get a moment of panic when I have to make anything with dough because, you know, when you have to work dough, you know, when you're proper working it, it clings in all your fingers and your webs and stuff. And they're like, no, no, no, if you do it well, it's going to fall off. But I always just had this horrible image of just being my hands trapped in these doughy handcuffs. Forever. But, you know, if you keep on kneading it, yeah, eventually it comes clean off. But

that was a hurdle I had to get past at the beginning of sort of my dough career. So while you were starting to knead the bread, there was a point before you got to the end where you thought, I might be here for the rest of my life stuck. I might never get out of this. And you started to lose faith. In your, and I quote, doughy handcuffs. Yeah, because you can't move it from hand to hand every time you try and shake it off. It just, you know, it stays. Yeah, I completely understand whenever I've done dough stuff, you do get that panic where you're like, well, I want to get this off my hand. But if I use my other hand, it's going to be on that hand. It's like when you stand on a bit of

tape and you try and step off the tape and then it's on your other foot. Yes, exactly. So that was my that was my panic with dough. So I would like someone else to make the Arancini for me. Yeah, so that you're not reminded of your ex-ma days. Do you want the person making the Arancini to have ex-ma? No, I don't want there to be any ex-ma involved. Okay, I think just be straight, straight mushroom risotto and breadcrumbs. Either you want the little ones that you saw at the market. Yeah, the big one. The marble size ones. Marble size. No, sorry. No, marbles are a bit match. The golf ball size ones. Yeah, the golf ball size ones. Yeah. If you're

getting marble ones from someone else, they're your opposite. You've found your opposite in the world. Well, you say that, but at school, I actually used to be a marble champion. Yeah, I can't describe how this happened. Well, you're going to need to. Okay, when I was at school in Zimbabwe, we used to play with Pokemon cards. But then one day, somebody came into school and said that this kid had burnt down their parents' house because a Pokemon had told him to do it. So we were all then told that the Pokemons are demonic, so we had to all throw our cards in the bin, like our teachers made us throw our cards in the bin. So anyway, the next day, someone came in and they had my...

He goes, okay. Every single... This is the first time I've ever spoke to you. Every single story has a faraway detail, which could be a film in itself. Just to get to why I was a marble champion, I kid him my class burnt down his house because a Pokemon told him to do it, and we weren't allowed to play Pokemon anymore because they were demonic. Anyway, I keep putting like everything you say, I'm like, well, I'll put a pin in that and we'll have to come back to it. Basically, this whole conversation is just pins that have not gone back. But anyway, so one day, the next day, someone came in and they just had marbles, and they were like, we're going to start playing marbles. Here's how you play. You've got different... It's a move at

a time, and your job is to hit the other person's marble. So you can do like a high bummer, which is when you throw over the shoulder. You can do like a rollie where you roll across the floor. And so we started to build up this community of marbles, and there was different values. So like you had the Colgate, which is the one where it's like three stripes inside, and then you had like the Demon Eye and the Dolphin Eye. The Demon Eye? I mean, that is, come on guys. My mum actually banned me from having that in the house, but I actually convinced her to allow me to keep it because I had another one called an Angel Eye. So I said to her, it will balance out. Anyway. You, as a kid, managed to convince a grown woman that that was fine. Mum, I know you've

confiscated my Demon Eye marble, but I also have the Angel Eye. Therefore it balances out, and I won't go to hell. Here's your marble back. Yeah, yeah. She said it wasn't like a hard stance. Like she wasn't like throw it out. She just said, I don't know how I feel about having the Demon Eye in the house. And I went mum, it's fine because I've got an Angel Eye. Anyway, listen to my point because basically you win these marbles by rolling them and whatnot. But what I learned is when people are really arguing over marbles during, you know, the position of marble, you could actually start to just pinch their marble from under their feet, whatnot, because they usually keep it between their legs and then roll it. So I would go around collecting

these really high value Dolphin Eye Angel Eye. I would, you know, I would steal them. And I actually got to the point of I had, and I only have 10 with me now because I wasn't able to bring all of them. But at home in Zimbabwe, I have 668 marbles. All stolen. Some that I have won, some that I have stolen. Now, Monia, I just, that is what we would call burying the lead, that story. That story took so long to get to the fact you've got a lot of marbles. And along the way, there were lots of things that should be stories in their own right. Yeah. Right. So also, it started off with you saying I was a marble champion. And the reveal is, you weren't, you stole those of marbles off of Logan. Yeah, you weren't a marble champion.

I was a champion marble stealer. Yeah. You stole the other kids marbles. Yeah. But from what I can gather, you didn't play a single game of marbles. You just stole them off the other kids and then convinced your mum it was okay to keep them because one of them was an angel. You know, I was good sometimes. I'm going to need to know more about the Pokemon Arsonist as well. What Pokemon was it that told them to burn the building down? It must have been a Fire Pokemon. Yeah, Charizard. But I don't even know. They just said, look, the Pokemon cards whispered to him to, you know, to burn the house. Look, it's very easy to access Fire and Zimbabwe. Even me, I actually burnt down my neighbour's garden by mistake once.

Okay, well, again, there we go. Okay, no, no. I'm just kidding. I'm going to give you the short version because you don't wish for time. But anyway, my garden story very quickly is, in Zimbabwe, your garden, it's not like an English garden where it's a nice, you know, neat lawn. The grass is very long, you know, a high grass. And a lot of the time, there's no wall around your house. Your garden just goes on forever. So people decide whose garden is which. Anyway, you know, you don't have a lawn mower that can reach that far down the garden because we're talking acres and acres. So I really fancied my neighbour's mum and she said to us one day, she said, look, this grass is really, it's untamed.

You know, what can we do? And my, I had a cousin called Mike who would visit every summer holidays like most, you know, most people, but he always would get us into trouble. And he said to me, we can burn the grass in a controlled fire. Anyway, what happened is we set light to the grass, and then obviously it just all went up in an absolute rage of flames and continued to spread through everyone's gardens. And then we just had to lie to my dad and say, you know, we don't know what happened. But you know, her, she didn't have any grass left. It was all black. And which Pokemon told Mike to do this? Yeah. But you know, we generally thought that we could stop, we could just, you know,

curb the fire when we felt it was right, but it just got away from us. It happens. Yes. Because as he said, we're going to burn the grass with a controlled fire. I think that is a thing you can do, but I don't think you then just throw a match at some grass. I think you have to do things beforehand to make sure it stops burning at that point. Yeah. I know that now. I was just a kid at the time. I was, I was not to know, you know. And for what I gather, it's because you fancied this lady, you fancied your friend's mum, and you wanted to cut the grass so that she would maybe see you as a potential suitor. Just so that she would, just to get a point, yeah, just point scoring and being like, look,

I can do macho things, even though, you know, Well, you did the most macho thing you burnt down all the gardens. What's your main course? Okay. Yeah. I've taken too much time because I actually, Are you, are you pushed for time? Do you? Yeah. I have to do another podcast at four. At four. I'm going to have a little look now. We've got 15 minutes. Okay. Okay. All right. So my, my, okay. My main course is going to be Oxtel.

You know, Caribbean food, Oxtel with rice and peas, right? Very much deprived of this growing up in Norwich. We didn't have any kind of thing like that. So with Oxtel, it's not just the taste of the food because I love Caribbean food, but it's also just the, the thrill of it because the Caribbean takeaways near where I live, the Caribbean ones, they are actually very hit and miss. When they get it right, when they get the Oxtel right, it is just a delight for the senses. You know, the meal carries you for days. When it gets, and then they get it wrong, you know, pardon my patois, but you be shitting through that I have a needle for the next few

days. So there's something about that gambling, you know, that gambling process, which I also find quite enjoyable. Do you like that? Well, yeah, you know, it's just, it's the knowledge that you could have one and you could be fine. And if you have, if you are, then it's really a risk that's paid off. Uh-huh. You know? So you want this to be a risky Oxtel that we're giving you? No, no, no. I want it to be a, I don't want it to be a risky one actually. I want it to, I just don't want to get ill from eating. Do you want it to turn out to be good, but that you don't know at the start? Yeah. At the start, it could be a risk. That would be perfect. It turns out to be a good one. Because we don't want to take away that, that element of risk, because that's

clearly a big part of it for you. You like ordering it and eating it. And then 24 hours later going, well, actually that was fine, that. Yeah. Exactly. Because then it's just, you know, you just feel good. You think, yeah, I had a good meal. Like I enjoyed it in its entirety during and after. What's Cousin Mike up to these days? Cousin Mike, I don't even know. The last time I saw him, I had put my, my bum through a window. No. We were sword fighting. And I like tried to dodge back from his, you know, his stick. Yeah. And then I put my, my bum through like the glass around the door. But was it open and it stuck in the, in the gap? Or did you literally go through a window? You smashed through. It just smashed,

it was very thin glass, just smashed through. We didn't have, you didn't have double glazing into the bar, but it just smashed straight through. And then that was the last time you saw Cousin Mike. That was the last time. Did he just run out when your bum went through the window and then you never saw him again? It was an easier escape route for him, obviously, because there's a hole in the window. But yeah, no, I never saw him again. I never even spoke to him again, actually, but I'll, I'll check in with him after this. Yeah. He's up to. Hey, it's Mo. You haven't seen this since I put my bum through the window. Just wondering how you're doing. I was telling, I was telling a couple of comics about, about the time you told me that

we could cut the grass with a controlled fire. Do you remember that? Just seeing how you, just seeing how you're doing, just checking it. But you know, he just was, you surely must have met one of these people who you just always, when they're around, just trouble. Yeah. Yeah. You know, once he actually locked me inside my own room and we had to break the burglar bars to climb out. The burglar bars? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a bubbly in front of your windows. They put these, you know, burglar bars so you can't get into the windows. Right. So we had to basically, I had to become like a welder, just to try and get out of this room that he'd locked me in. But of course, it was always my fault. So actually, it's a good thing I don't see because of Mike anymore, because

he was old enough to trick everyone that I had done it. But you say, you say that when you saw Cousin Mike, there was always trouble. But for him, you were his cousin, Mike, in a way, because you were trouble every time, you know, you don't know, was he getting in trouble when he wasn't with you? Or was he always just getting, because you might have been the bad influence, if you think. You're the one who broke the burglar bars. You're the one who put him through the window. Because no, he threw the mat. He, you know, he would teach us bad habits. Like he would say to us, you know, when you have a bath, put Vaseline on the base of the bath so that you slip around. And it's really fun. So if there was a time that I used to would put Vaseline

in the bottom of the bath and just stand around and pretend that we were surfing. So I wasn't, I didn't invent that. He's the one who came to me and said, do this, it's fun. You did it. Yeah. And then you did, he carried on doing it for a while to be fair to you. He knew who he was telling. He wasn't going up and telling that to his dad, was he? He was going, I'm going to tell him. He'll love it. He'll love putting Vaseline in the bath. So did you put Vaseline in the bath and then fill the bath with water and then slide around? So it was all in there at the same time. Yeah. Because that's how generally surfing happened. You know, it's in the water. Yes. So how, how much longer did you put Vaseline in the bath after cousin Mike told

you to do that? I quickly kind of discovered it's kind of dangerous because, you know, sometimes you fall, you know, nearly hit your head. So I didn't do it too much, but, you know, like we just went in a while. Wasn't a while you do a Vaseline bath and slip and nearly hit your head and think, oh, maybe I should stop doing this. Next time I come on, I'm going to tell you about the time that I actually did slip out the bath looking at an elephant out the window on holiday. Well, the thing is, you're going to have to tell us about that now. No, no, no, because I need to do my rest of my courses and I only got 10 minutes. Listen, if we can't get to the end of your courses, we will have you back on another episode. We've never had a cliffhanger before. I'm happy to

have a cliffhanger because you just said that at one point when you were in your Vaseline bath, you fell over because you were looking out the window at an elephant. So I would like to hear that story. All right. So we went on holiday to this place. I think it might be called tree, but anyway, the whole novelty of this place is that the animals will roam freely, you know, not dangerous animals like lions, crocodiles, just elephants, whatever. Anyway, I was having a bath and I thought, well, you know, I'm on a holiday special occasion, get the Vaseline. Not the Vaseline in the bath and then round the bath. Yeah. Not the first time that sentence has been said, but never for that reason.

Anyway, one important detail is I'm a very meticulous person, but on this one occasion, I'd gone for a wee before the bath and left the seat up. Okay. So I didn't put the seat back down. So it was just the solid rim of the toilet seat. So anyway, the toilet's very close to the bath. I'm in the bath. I put Vaseline in. I've had my phone now. I'm sitting in the bath. So next thing I know, my mum says, oh, you know, there's elephants. There's elephants walking outside. Look, they're all walking like a parade between the holiday homes. So I now get up to look out the bath, to look out the window and look at these elephants. As I stand up, of course, I slip. And when I slip forward, I go out of the bath and hit my head

on the toilet seat, on the concrete bit or whatever it is. And then my head swells outwards into this bulge, as you can imagine. So, you know, this duck egg in the middle of my head. And then, yeah, I just spent the rest of the holiday having to explain to people, yes, I fell in the bath because I slipped on the Vaseline when I was looking at elephants and hit my head on the toilet seat. Didn't even lie about it. Did you not have to? Every time you told someone about that, were they familiar with the Vaseline in the bath that sometimes you put Vaseline in the bath and pretend to surf? Or did you have to tell them about Cousin Mike and the Vaseline and pretending to surf in the bath? No, I just left the Vaseline bit out because it was just longer to explain.

I just said I slipped in the bath. You slipped in the bath, yeah. But in your head, you were thinking, because I covered it in Vaseline. Well, usually I was, you know, I can stand in a bath of Vaseline, but it was the speed at which I stood up. Sure, no one's questioning your credentials. Yeah, that you're able to stand in a bath that you've fasted up yourself voluntarily. Right, we come onto your side dish now. Nice and simple. You know, if you're going to have ox tail rice and peas, you've got to sort of stick within the theme. So I would say just some, and it's quite tricky, because I always panic when I need to say this word. I know that I should say planting, but I'm

going to say plantain because that's what makes me feel, you know, I'll say plantain. Absolutely delicious. No side stories there. But the thing is, I don't believe that. I believe that there is at least four hours of side stories there, but you are well away. You need to be somewhere else. And you know that every time you say anything, me and James are going to look delighted and ask you to expand on it for 15. You're in a real tricky position now, aren't you? Because your professionalism is outweighing the fact that you've lived an absolutely bad shit life. You're trying to keep it as professional as you can. You can go do this on a podcast when you know that, oh, I know, if I say that, they're going to make me tell you. No, no, no, but listen to this. I also know

professionally that it's good to leave people wanting more. You know, I want people to say, hey, get them when you're back on. So what I will say, and I'm not going to tell you the full story now, you'll wait till next time, is I was once taken to a petting zoo. It was called the Friend Foundation. You can Google it if you want. It was not even a petting zoo. It's just where they found stray animals. And I unleashed a cage of monkeys into the petting zoo. And we actually did use bananas to lure them back in. But I was bitten by one. But that's all I'll tell you for now. What is that all you'll tell us for now? What are you talking about? No, no, I told you it's a cliff. I told you I'll tell you the rest next time.

What we're meant to do now, just say, what's your drink? What's your dessert? See you later? Yes. Just say, yeah, no, it's just a pin in it. Why would we get you back on? Because if we do the full menu with you, then we've got no excuse. We can't just get you back on to tell us about the time you unleashed some monkeys in a petting zoo. Just do another podcast. If you told us the petting zoo monkey story now, then the proper cliffhanger is what's your dessert, what's your drink? And then we've got full excuse to get you back on. No, no, no. I need to tell you a story about the drink. And then, you know, by then you'll still be able to, you have to get me on just for dessert. I've never, ever, in all the years I've been doing this podcast, had a guest make

this sort of bargain and negotiate. I've never done a podcast with anyone who uses the appearance on the podcast to pitch for a second appearance. You haven't had them go. There was a story about that. But if you want that, you're going to have to have me on again. I am tempted now because I've never had anyone go and I was bit by a monkey. If you want to know more, chat to me later. Of course I want to know more. You're a bit of a monkey. Even though the summary of the story was essentially the whole story itself, I went to a petting zoo and unleashed a load of monkeys and one of them bit me. No, no, no, no, no. There's other details. There was a goat as well that we've had to avoid. You've told us that now. You don't know the extent of the goat of Asia.

You don't know the extent of the goat. But look, listen, so I'm going to tell you my drink now. You're leaving us on. We can't. Yeah. All right, so my go-to drink would be a mojito. Yeah, nice and simple, nothing too crafty about that. But I always, now that's the only cocktail I feel safe with because the night before, the second lockdown before Christmas, whenever it was, there's a bar. I love it. Go to it in Soho. It's a secret bar. I'm not even going to tell you what it is because I like it when it's empty. So it's sandwiched between loads of restaurants in Chinatown. It's like the size of a wardrobe. You go in there and you go upstairs and then the bar opens up. Anyway, they do these amazing cocktails. So I was going there every weekend,

you know, dumplings, dimsum, whatnot. Brilliant. The cocktail is amazing. So I go there now and I notice on the shelf, there's this, there are these row of panda cups that they never use. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, what drink is that? Because I've tried every drink on the menu. They never give me the panda cup. So the night before we go of second lockdown, we go there and I see on the menu a cocktail that says pineapple panda. So of course I go for it because I'm thinking, yes, finally the drink I haven't tried here. So they serve it up to me in this panda now. And I drink, I drink it, I finish it in maybe like four gulps. Yeah, because I'm really, I'm ready to have a good night. And my belly starts hurting.

I'm thinking, what's going on? So I speak to my missus. I said, do you get a belly ache if you drink without having eaten before? She said, not really. So I just started eating all these prawn crackers, also known as poppadums. And then order another one of these drinks anyway, just to pass the time. Son of, you just, you, the drink that made you feel ill, you ordered again. Yeah. Okay, carry on. It was delicious. It was delicious. But the thing that made it delicious was there was this taste in it that I've never tasted before. And let me tell you, I've tasted a lot of things. Yeah. But this flavor here, I couldn't put my finger on it. It was like really intense, sweet, pineapple-y, a bit banana-y, but it wasn't pineapple or banana. Right.

All of a sudden, I start feeling real bad. Okay, real bad. And I said to her, I said, are you sure that this doesn't happen if you eat, if you drink without eating? She said, no, no, no, it shouldn't happen. Okay. So anyway, we look at the menu, we grab the menu. Well, I finished the second one, we grab the menu and we're reading the ingredients because the thing is, I'm allergic to nuts, right? Looking at the menu, pineapple, mango, liqueur, whatnot, and then just this other weird French word, whatnot. So I think, you know, I got to go to the bathroom. So now I'll go to the bathroom. Gabs now says to me, oh, I've just done a Google translate on this word. And it is French almond syrup. And I've just down two of these almond

cocktails. Yeah. Anyway, you know, the rest is history, but just had to sort of limp home dazed by this almond poison. You know, the worst bit was they had, it was a, you know, it's a Chinese bar, but all the waiters are French. So there was just these guys banging on the doors in French outside. Obviously, everyone was turning around looking, waiting for me to come out. So I didn't have to do the walk of shame. You're in there. Were you being, were you being sick? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of it. You were doing all of it. And all of the waiters are banging on, banging on the door and screaming at you in French. Yeah. Well, they're saying, you know, are you okay? You were staggering out and everyone could see you. And then you, you went backwards

into it and put your bum through a window and then a monkey bit you on the arm. Mike, Mike made the cocktail. Yeah. And then, and then, you know, so that was my pre lockdown night ruined. I had to go home straight away. So now I have as a policy where if I have a drink with a meal, it's just going to be mojito because that's the only way there's no risk because I don't know the French of almond syrup. Now, we have two minutes left. Do you want to say your dessert? No. No. Listen, look, look, Bonito, Bonito, I know that you really want us to get the dessert with you, but we've done so many episodes and never once had someone leave it on a cliffhanger before. And I feel like, I feel like if we force him to say what his dessert is, I don't think it will

be very satisfying, but I think it's quite funny. I'm not going to tell you that unless you have me back on at the end of the episode. What shall we say? Let's do a vote. I think we should do the dessert. Okay, James. Well, I'll go along with doing the dessert. My comic instinct at the time you said no was to go along with you, not doing it, but now that Bonito has said he wants you to do it. Okay, I'll whist through it. So my dessert would be a chocolate bomb. Okay. A chocolate bomb? A chocolate bomb. Do you want it presented in a window? No. Well, there is this thing that there's a bit of a tradition with me in this chocolate bomb, because I eat this chocolate bomb when I go to this restaurant called the Ivy. You know the Ivy?

Yeah. Right. But it's a bit of a tradition that happens when I'm a bit tipsy. So by this point in the meal, obviously, you've had the starter bread, maybe a main, and you've had a few drinks. I've had a few drinks. Okay. So I'm at this point, I'm a bit tipsy. Usually around this stage, when I'm waiting for the dessert, I will then go to pee. When I go to pee, if you go in the Ivy toilets, there's these gnomes on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. Tiled into the wall. And it's a tradition now. I've never shared this until today. But usually I go in and greet the gnomes whilst I pee, and then we'll come back and eat my chocolate bomb. Because I'm so, you know, in your tipsy, you just want to speak to, you just want to speak to anyone. Yeah, everyone's at their own tables.

So now it's, you know, it's not conversation. I'll just nod at the gnomes and then come out and enjoy my chocolate bomb. Yeah. So I would only have a chocolate bomb in your restaurant if you have gnomes tiled onto the wall. We could do that for you. In your head, if you don't go and greet the gnomes before you eat the chocolate bomb, what will happen? I don't know. Maybe I went and I've only ever finished the chocolate bomb since I started doing that, whether it's because, you know, I'm taking a bit longer in there or what, but before I would always leave it half eaten. Now I can finish it full. Oh, so you think that might be the magic of the gnomes? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the worst thing when you have a delicious dessert and you can't finish it all.

So, you know, because then you, as soon as you walk out the restaurant, the instant feeling you have is, oh, I could have finished that. Yeah. So I prefer just to get it all done in one sitting. So you think that maybe you order your chocolate bomb and then you go to the toilet and you say, hello gnomes. And then when you are walking out of the toilet, the gnomes give you their magic so that you can finish the whole pudding. Must be gnomes magic. I'm not saying it's not, I'm not saying necessarily it's magic, but it's just a superstition. You know, it's like when people, you know, look like like lucky socks. Yeah. You know, so that's just my version of that. Yeah. It's a little nod to the gnomes, but I'm yet to be in a situation where there's someone else

in the, in the toilet. So that if that happened, then I wouldn't be able to say it and then I would have to see what happened. Oh, so you ask, are you saying something out loud to the gnomes? Sometimes, but usually it's just a nod. How many gnomes are there and do they have names? Okay. Listen, have you ever done the TV show, would I lie to you? I think you need to get yourself booked on it as soon as possible. You really do. Listen, just picture it. I'm on the verge of being drunk now. Okay. I'm at the urinal. I'm not thinking, it sounds weird when you're saying it. So, but when you're drunk, you're like, yeah, of course I would, you know, of course I'm just going to say something stupid

to these gnomes. So I'm not having a conversation there. I'm just going, you know, I'm just going, you know, or right or whatever or just nodding and then leaving. Yes. If before you've had your chocolate bomb, you don't need the toilet, what are you doing? Still going to the toilet? Just say hi to them? No, no, no, because I'll save it up. By this point, I'm bursting point on sparkling water. So yeah, I need to have that break. So you were deliberately at the beginning of the meal, if you need the toilet, the thought process would be, I need the toilet. Oh no, hold that in because you've got to say hello to the gnomes before my chocolate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You could, you know, you can stagger these things, isn't it? You know your routine. I know that by the time I've had

my main course, I've got enough in the tank to just, just to go and empty it. I like the way you're trying to sell this to us as completely normal and get us on side and go, you know, you've got, you've got your routine, haven't you? Yeah. It's like saying it's like lucky, it's like lucky socks. It's nothing like lucky socks. But you, you guys must do some sort of thing before you do your gigs. No, no, nothing, no gesture, no, nothing, no song. No, I usually just pace around, really regretting all my life choices. I think, well, and then I go on stage. But maybe I should get a lucky name. I had a tradition on my tour two tours ago, where in the interval, if I wasn't enjoying the gig, I would write the name of the place on a

list of places that I was never going to go back to again. Yeah. Oh, in that case, I do have a tradition and it's the same. Oh, so Ed's main tradition, of course, before he goes on stage is puffing the old chest up for about half an hour, isn't it? Yeah, that's my boy out. Right, I'm going to read your menu back to you now and see how you feel about it. Water, you want still water. Pop it on with your bread, cold toast with a thick layer of butter. Starter, mushroom, arancini, golf ball size. Main course, ox terrorized some peas. Side dish, plantain, drink, mojito, dessert, chocolate bomb from the IV. I would say in all the time that we've done this podcast, there has never been a menu that does not reflect the episode we

have just done before. That menu in no way reflects the conversation we've just had. No clue whatsoever in that menu. No, everything had a backstory. Everything had a backstory now. Yeah, absolutely. It's actually a really nice menu, but I won't remember it because all I remember is your bum sticking through a window. Yeah, and we told it at the end to the monkey story, although we do know that it bit you on the head and not the arm. Thank you very much, Mudja. Thank you, Mudja. That's very much. I see you soon for the next, for the monkey story, yeah. Well, there we have it. I say it was the off-menu menu of Munya Chihuahua, but it's probably the episode where we've least talked about the food, James.

It was the most off-menu. It was off, off, off-menu and into his life and the tales. I mean, you know, people say that food can like, you know, spark memories inside of you. Don't we just know it? If Munya was in that to me, he would have had a mouthful of that, and we'd have gone into his childhood, and we would have seen him set in fire to a garden and put his bum through a window. I absolutely loved that episode. I loved every single story, and I love that he came on, and he deliberately did not tell us a full story so that he could come on again. What, what a pro? What a businessman? Yeah. I mean, you see, this guy's going to go far. Oh, yeah. Every time he goes on a TV show, he's just going to go, no, not tell me that whole

thing. Sorry, Graham Norton. He'll have to have me on again. He really should be on Would I Lie to You every week, I think. Yeah, and he would get on it every week because he would refuse to tell them if it was a true for a lie or not each time he goes, you have to have me on next week. I'll press the button then, but I'm not pressing it now. You're not getting me that easily. If you want a flavor of the sort of thing Munya does, check out his Instagram, which is at Munya Chihuahua, and I mean, a lot of the posts, I'll be honest, they're only about 10 seconds long, and then he says tune in tomorrow for the next post. Yeah. But it's all good stuff. You've got a lot of followers on there, and for good reason. We're on Instagram as well, James.

At off menu official. Same on Twitter. Go and check out all our stuff on there. He didn't say mung beans, Munya, luckily. I mean, we were covering a lot of ground. They might have popped up at some point. Maybe if he'd done a full episode, we would have heard about mung beans. Next time we have him on, we'll ask him about mung beans and we'll see if he has got a story about them. I'm sure he does. That'll be interesting. I'm sure him and cousin Mike threw some mung beans at a plane and the plane crashed into their bum or something. Obviously, there's a lot of people who get mentioned on the podcast, who aren't on the podcast, who I then want to get on the podcast, and obviously now I want

cousin Mike on to do an episode. Well, we should definitely do an episode with cousin Mike, Willie from Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas. Mitch. Mitch, obviously. Oh, man, I can't only, we've interviewed Willie, and we had Mitch on via telephone link up. So we do need cousin Mike, really. We're steadily doing it. We didn't hear enough of Babs in the Jade Adams episode. Yeah, a bit more Babs. I mean, we are building up a Marvel style cinematic university. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one day, one of our dedicated fans will draw up all of the characters that have ever been mentioned in any of the episodes, how they link up to the guests and how they link up to each other, of course. Willie links up to Andy Oliver and Joe Thomas. Yeah. Oh, man. What a treat.

Well, it was a great episode. We enjoyed it very much. We'll see you next week for another episode with Munya Chihuahua. Yes, of course. Hi, I'm Gina Martin, a campaigner and writer. And I'm Stevie Martin. I'm a comedian and writer and also we're sisters. We are sisters and we're doing our new podcast, Mike Delete Later. It's a podcast about social media, about going back. We can get your embarrassing ones, things you like, things you don't like, and we're talking to all of them types of people. So many different types of people got writers. We've got comedians. Maybe we'll get a politician. Maybe we'll get a dog. Maybe I'll talk to a plant, deal with it. Who knows? It's like a little snapshot into people's social media lives.

Yeah. And hopefully it will make you think more about how you use social media and how you feel about it. So do subscribe on all of the platforms that you usually get your podcasts on and visit at Mike Delete Later pod on Instagram because we're going to be putting up really fun videos and the things that you didn't see in the podcast episode. Oh, exciting. Thanks, dudes. Hello, it's me, Amy Gladhill. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu, where I spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on mashed potato and our relationship's never been the same since. And I am joined by me, Ian Smith. I would probably go bread among the I'm not going to spoil it in case. Get him on James and Ed, but we're here sneaking in to your

podcast experience to tell you about a new podcast that we're doing. It's called Northern News. It's about all the new stories that we've missed out from the North because look, we're two Northerners. Sure. But we've been living in London for a long time. The new stories are funny. Quite a lot of them crimes. It's all kicking off. And that's a new podcast called Northern News. We'd love you to listen to. Maybe we'll get my mum on. Get Glill's mum on every episode. That's Northern News. When's it out, Ian? It's already out now, Amy. Is it? Yeah, get listening. There's probably a backlog. You've left it so late.