Ahir Shah

Summary

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ahir Shah
Episode Date: March 11, 2026
Summary by Podcast Summarizer

---

Episode Overview

In this lively episode of "Off Menu," comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster welcome award-winning stand-up comic Ahir Shah to their dream restaurant. Ahir, known for his witty and thoughtful comedy, is here to order his ultimate starter, main course, side, dessert, and drink. The conversation weaves through nostalgic food experiences, family stories, the quirks of British-Indian cuisine, and the significance of memory, tradition, and community around food—with plenty of jokes and playful banter.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing Ahir and the Dream Restaurant Experience

• Ed and James introduce Ahir as an "award-winning comedian" (02:06), noting he won the Edinburgh Comedy Award on his third nomination, sparking a humorous tally of their own nominations and misadventures at the awards (02:11–03:00).
• Secret Ingredient: Burnt ends (03:32–03:48). They humorously rule out burnt ends for Ahir, who’s vegetarian.

2. On Foodie Transformation & Nostalgia

• Ahir’s Food Journey: "I didn't used to be [a foodie], but...when I quit smoking, I needed something to do...so I just started cooking, like, five, six meals a day." (07:36–08:05)
• Living near Borough Market introduced him to new ingredients and sparked a love for experimenting with cooking, especially recreating Gujarati vegetarian dishes from his childhood (08:58–09:31).

Memorable Quote:
"If I'm chopping onions, I'm not thinking about the fact that I wish I was smoking 20 cigarettes right now." – Ahir (08:03)

3. Family Food Stories & Cultural Heritage

• Ahir details his efforts to master his family’s Gujarati cuisine, humorous challenges with achieving "home-style" results, and his mother's advice: "It's just a matter of time...after about five years, you'll be able to..." (11:39).
• Monkey Story: In a standout anecdote, Ahir recounts his grandmother’s first day as a bride in 1955 India, when a monkey jumped through the window and stole her rotli dough (12:14–13:20). This sparks playful debate on monkeys, family pressures, and generational memory:
  • "Wives should learn how to punch monkeys, as we all know." – Ed (13:20)
  • Imagining the monkey later running a restaurant for other monkeys, tying back into the thread of legacy and absurdity (14:01–14:39).

4. Reflections on Generational Change

• Ahir’s Netflix stand-up show "Ends" is rooted in exploring his grandparents' migration, generational perspective shifts, and cultural preservation (15:00–17:30).
• James and Ed share their own family tales, contrasting ways families share—or obscure—history (17:21–19:39).

5. Menu Choices: Tradition and Curiosity

Welcome Drink

• Sparkling Water: Ahir chooses sparkling water, despite having learned it may harm tooth enamel in excess. The hosts riff on sparkling water’s perceived fanciness, its dangers, and the hypothetical extreme of a sparkling water tap (21:57–25:02).

  Notable exchange:
  "He has it coming out of his tap. Yeah. He's the first person I ever saw who had it coming out of a tap." – Ahir (23:11)

Poppadoms and Bread

• 50/50 Raw and Roasted Pappad: Ahir prefers the pappad he grew up with—roasted over flame and also enjoys the raw variety, sparking a debate on the authenticity of Indian food in British restaurants (27:27–35:09).
  • "It's like if someone's Spanish and goes to a European restaurant and gets Swedish food...It's technically the same continent, mate." – Ahir (30:52)
  • Discussion on how diasporic cuisine adapts to local palates yet can feel uncannily different from its roots.

Starter

• Pani Puri from Rekri Pani Puri (Ealing Road):
  • "Basically, you can have infinity pani puri..." – Ahir (36:04)
  • Details the construction and ritual of eating pani puri; fondly recalls a shop blaring its own advert and eating compulsive rounds while reflecting on how a single-item menu indicates quality (41:46–45:12).

Main Course

• Gujarati Veggie Thali:
  • Ahir's dream main is a segmented plate (evocative of family events or even prison trays, as Ed jokes) with a variety of Gujarati vegetarian dishes, rice, dal, curries, yogurt soup (kadhi), puri, and rotating vegetable preparations (46:42–53:01).
  • The tray conjures strong memories of togetherness at family gatherings and musical evenings (53:06–54:57).

Side Dish

• Pizza Hut Cheesy Garlic Bread:
  • "Aggressively 90s" nostalgia choice, recalling childhood dreams of adulthood as unfettered access to cheesy garlic bread (55:32–58:30).
  • Contrasts this globalized comfort food with the home-style main, delighting the hosts.

Dream Drink

• Martini from Duke’s Hotel (St. James’s):
  • A touching story: "Three years ago today, I went for that martini with a woman who I'd been going out with for five weeks...a few hours later, we were engaged." (61:04–62:47)
• Thick Mango Lassi:
  • Especially fond recollection of a spoon-thick version with friend Pierre Novelli in Manchester and a shout-out to Bundobust restaurants (66:44–68:00).

Dessert

• Fried Goats Cheese with Honey (José, Bermondsey Street):
  • Not a traditional dessert, but a Spanish-style sweet-savory dish Ahir insists completes a meal with "definitive fullness." (72:12–74:15)
  • “If anyone is to suggest that I eat in the next 24 hours, I am going to explode.” – Ahir (73:36)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Indian Restaurant Adaptation:
  "If someone were to go to, like, a Spanish person going to a European restaurant and suddenly being served Swedish food or whatever..." – Ahir (30:52)

• On Cheesy Garlic Bread Aspirations:
  "If I had a really amazing job one day...I could have specifically a portion of cheesy garlic bread from Pizza Hut every day if I wanted to." – Ahir (58:00)

• On the Monkey Legacy:
  "In the present day, at the end, everyone's plates...to be cleared away by the monkey. And this monkey is still alive." – Ahir (76:03)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |----------------------------------|---------------| | Ahir’s introduction & awards banter | 02:06–03:14 | | Secret ingredient: burnt ends | 03:32–04:17 | | Becoming a foodie after quitting smoking | 07:36–09:31 | | Cooking family Gujarati dishes & the monkey story | 11:39–14:33 | | Netflix special “Ends” & generational differences | 15:00–17:30 | | Sparkling water & dental fears | 21:57–25:02 | | Pappad & diaspora Indian food | 27:27–35:09 | | Pani puri (starter) & Rekri Pani Puri review | 36:04–45:12 | | Dream thali & family music parties | 46:42–54:57 | | Side: Pizza Hut garlic bread | 55:32–58:30 | | Dream Drink: Martini/Duke’s story | 61:04–62:47 | | Drink: Mango lassi & Bundobust | 66:44–68:00 | | Dessert: Goats cheese & honey | 72:12–74:15 | | Monkey as the meal’s closing note| 76:03–76:52 |

---

Episode Highlights & Running Jokes

• Monkey story: A thread running from the start to finish, symbolizing unpredictability, legacy, and family folklore.
• Food authenticity and adaptation: Insightful discussion around Indian food identity in diaspora settings, nostalgia for regional varieties.
• Pizza Hut nostalgia: The cheesy garlic bread becomes a cross-cultural talisman for childhood dreams and adult autonomy.
• Emotion through food: Tying menu selections to powerful memories, especially with Ahir’s engagement martini and family gatherings.
• Hosts’ interplay: James' mock-genie resets ("pop it on top bed") and Ed’s focus on the monkey and cheesy garlic bread provide signature comic momentum.

---

Complete Dream Menu Ordered by Ahir Shah

• Drink: Sparkling water (as a treat, not from the tap!)
• Pappad: 50% roasted over flame / 50% raw, for snacking while the rest are cooked; open windows, monkeys beware
• Starter: Pani puri from Rekri Pani Puri on Ealing Road
• Main Course: Gujarati vegetarian thali, served on segmented plastic plates reminiscent of family gatherings with live music
• Side Dish: Cheesy garlic bread from Pizza Hut (90s nostalgia)
• Drinks during meal: Gin martini from Duke’s (St. James’s), followed by thick mango lassi (Bundobust if in the North)
• Dessert: Fried goat’s cheese with honey from José (Bermondsey Street)
• Special Touches: Paneered with blaring pani puri shop adverts; a live band; at the end of the meal, dishes cleared by the now-elderly, reflective monkey from his grandmother’s story, complete with a badge ("Northern Ireland junior washing up champion").

---

Closing Thoughts

This episode blends culinary authenticity, immigrant nostalgia, family humor, and playful digressions. The meal Ahir curates is as much about emotional satisfaction and storytelling as it is about taste, culminating in joyful surrealism when the legendary monkey returns to clear the plates. It's a rich, funny, and heartfelt conversation—essential listening for both Off Menu fans and newcomers alike.

---

Notable Quote to Close: "Given that the monkey caused so many problems at the beginning of a meal in 1955, I would like...at the end and everyone's plates...to be cleared away by the monkey. And this monkey is still alive." – Ahir (76:03)

Transcript

[Aheer Shah]

This is a Monday.com ad. The same Monday.com helping people worldwide getting work done faster and better. The same Monday.com designed for every team and every industry. The same Monday.com with built in AI

[James Acaster]

scaling your work from day one.

[Aheer Shah]

The same Monday.com that your team will actually love using the samemonday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Yes, the same Monday.com hello listeners, meet Lisa. Hey there. Lisa runs an online boutique specializing in sustainable fashion.

[James Acaster]

With Acast, she found a whole new

[Aheer Shah]

way to reach eco conscious shoppers.

[James Acaster]

Yep.

[Aheer Shah]

I recorded a quick ad targeted listeners interested in fashion and sustainability using Acast's audience attributes targeting feature and set my budget. Before I knew it, people all over were hearing about my shop.

[Ed Gamble]

Now that's a smart way to grow your business. Hey Lisa, what's trending right now?

[Aheer Shah]

Shopping sustainably. And my sales, of course. Start reaching your ideal audience through podcast ads with Acast. Visit go.acast.com advertise to get started.

[Ed Gamble]

Welcome to the Off Menu podcast. Taking the gin of conversation and adding the ice of humor. Pouring in the tonic water of friendship and adding a little slice of giggle. Giggling. Lime.

[James Acaster]

Listen, most people have just gone just the gin and the tonic and been lazy. You got a gamble. He included the lime and the ice. Full respect.

[Ed Gamble]

I ain't drinking a gin and tonic without ice and lime.

[James Acaster]

That is a gamble. My name is James Acaster. Together we own a dream restaurant, you

[Ed Gamble]

know what I mean, beneath it.

[James Acaster]

And every single week we invite in a guest.

[Ed Gamble]

You probably feel like an alcoholic, that you're just drinking.

[James Acaster]

Starter main goals, dessert, gin, tonic and drink. Nice. And. And this week our guest is a

[Ed Gamble]

wonderful comedian, the brilliant Ahir Shah.

[James Acaster]

Yes. An award winning comedian as well.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. He won the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, James.

[James Acaster]

Yes. Second time he was nominated, I believe.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Yes. Two and done.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

He didn't like oh, Bonito's. Benito's Googling it. He doesn't think.

[Ed Gamble]

Maybe.

[James Acaster]

He doesn't think it. Third still.

[Ed Gamble]

So three is enough, isn't it? I think if you're nominated three times.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yeah. Some of us can only dream of the blessed relief of winning the third time.

[Ed Gamble]

You're five. You're five and five and out the running.

[James Acaster]

Right. Five and presumably out of the running. Yeah. I never watched.

[Ed Gamble]

Is anyone. Are you. Are you the record?

[James Acaster]

Yes. Yes, that's the record. No one's been nominated five times before. Three for our hair. There you go.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. So you won it on the fourth time. No, he won it on the third time. He won it on the third.

[James Acaster]

He won it on the third time.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And you did five and didn't win it.

[James Acaster]

I did five and never won. Yeah, yeah. Which means, you know, at least.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, I know there's people sat at home go, well, how many times are you nominated, Ed? Well, none, but that became clear very early on, so.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, but loads of people.

[Ed Gamble]

I just got to laugh at James every year.

[James Acaster]

There's loads of brilliant comedians who've never been nominated.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

You know, mine is the ultimate joke.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. How many times is Al Murray nominated?

[James Acaster]

Four. And one on the fourth time.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, that's good. That's really good. That would have been brilliant for you.

[James Acaster]

Also exciting news. Our here show that won the award ends is available to stream on Netflix now.

[Ed Gamble]

Very exciting. Yes, you can get it on Netflix.

[James Acaster]

If he mentions the secret ingredient, an ingredient which we would deem to be acceptable, we will kick him out. The dream. Best tr. And this week our secret ingredient is burnt ends.

[Ed Gamble]

Because of ends.

[James Acaster]

I'm so. I came up with this. I'm really proud of it.

[Ed Gamble]

Very clever.

[James Acaster]

Ed's told me how clever it is a number of times.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

So that feels good.

[Ed Gamble]

I love burnt ends.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah. They're delicious at the barbecue.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. It's the brisket. It's the ends of the brisket.

[James Acaster]

The end of the brisket. They've got a. Did they. I mean, is it just what happens anyway to the. Or do they sort of.

[Ed Gamble]

No, I think. I think they might scorch them extra after. Put them in sauce and do all of that. Yeah, yeah. Like meat butter, man.

[James Acaster]

Meat butter. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Melt in the mouth.

[James Acaster]

Baby Meat butter is like. That's an Ed Gamble show title.

[Ed Gamble]

Meat Butter.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You'd go out and do a tour show called Meat Butter or a travel

[Ed Gamble]

show called Ed Gamble meets Butter, where

[James Acaster]

you go look into the dairy industry.

[Ed Gamble]

Just go and check out. Yeah, but not in like a. Isn't the dairy industry bad?

[James Acaster]

No. Who needs that?

[Ed Gamble]

Like as in who needs that right now. Meet a lovely rosy cheeked farmer.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Try some butter with a spoon. And that's that. That's that. And then we're on to the next week.

[James Acaster]

A rosy cheeked farmer.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Maybe a buxom milk maid.

[James Acaster]

Oh, dear, oh, dear listeners, Ed's very quickly turned his butter travel show into looking at boobies. That's a huge shame.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I don't think the dairy industry would be where. It's where it is today without boobies. James.

[James Acaster]

Unarguable this is the off menu menu of Aheer Shah.

[Ed Gamble]

Welcome, Ahir to the Dream Restaurant.

[Aheer Shah]

Hello.

[James Acaster]

Welcome Ahisha to the Dream Restaurant. But it's put you for some time.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. Do you know what? No one can ever prepare you for what that's gonna feel like.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I think felt good. How did it feel?

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, it felt really quite overwhelming, actually. I mean, like, you know, with this coming here to the dream restaurant, doing this. I mean, obviously, I've known the pair of you for more than 15 years now. And, you know, this podcast starts a long time ago, and I'm thinking, it's gonna be my time. It's gonna be my time. Podcast takes off in a way that, let's be fair, my career didn't. And all of a sudden I'm refreshing my feed and it's like, oh, they got fucking Buzz Aldrin on this week. Not gonna be able to compete with that.

[Ed Gamble]

We should get Buzz Aldrin on it.

[James Acaster]

Buzz Aldrin.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Guy talking about his God.

[James Acaster]

Oh, man. Yeah. We haven't had space snacks on the pod. Yeah. Would you. Would you.

[Aheer Shah]

Until today, would you try some space snacks?

[James Acaster]

If you.

[Aheer Shah]

I feel like I'd give some space snacks a go.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Is it all powdered stuff you add water to?

[Ed Gamble]

No, I don't think so. I think it's dried stuff. I don't think you have to add water to add water. That'd be a nightmare in zero G, wouldn't it?

[James Acaster]

Yeah. As soon as I said it, I

[Ed Gamble]

thought, you're trying to pour the water into it. The water's going up.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. How you doing that?

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, it's. And this is one of those things that really makes you think. And that's why I won't go to space. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Not any of the other.

[Ed Gamble]

It's been offered to you multiple times, isn't it? It was part of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.

[Aheer Shah]

Part of the Edinburgh Comedy Award. Buzz got on the Blur to me.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

It's like, dude, I heard you. Heard you hang out with. And James pretty soon afterwards. Do you want me to come pick you up in the spacecraft? That's what he calls it, the spacecraft.

[Ed Gamble]

That's what happens. We come in the spacecraft. Bridget Christie had a great time. All of the winners went up to space with buzzwords.

[James Acaster]

Every time I was on the launch

[Aheer Shah]

pad five times in a row, just there yelling, Gad.

[Ed Gamble]

I always think of yell, Gad in the spacecraft being like, finally, somewhere she can't get

[James Acaster]

another little spacecraft following him.

[Aheer Shah]

My head's just doing the gif of this is the one thing we didn't want to.

[Ed Gamble]

He turns around and she's sat there.

[James Acaster]

Oh, no. Are you a foodie out here? You're much of a foodie.

[Aheer Shah]

Apologies. Yes, I am. I didn't used to be, but sort of. It transformed over a couple of things. So, firstly, the first time of many times that I quit smoking because you're like, well, I need something to do with my face and I need something to do with my hand the entire time. So I just started cooking, like, five, six meals a day. And so that was the first time that I probably got into, like, cooking and everything. Just because it's like, if I'm chopping onions, I'm not thinking about the fact that I wish I was smoking 20 cigarettes right now.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And got what a thing to remind yourself that it doesn't matter how much time there's been, even me saying, this is being like, yeah, but that sounds great. I would love to be smoking 20 cigarettes.

[James Acaster]

You both, like, love cigarettes, don't you?

[Aheer Shah]

Yes, that's why we love it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. There's a photo, famous photo, of Ed back in uni, where he's got how many cigarettes in your mouth at once?

[Ed Gamble]

Five.

[James Acaster]

Five.

[Aheer Shah]

Like a file photo of Hammer Simpson.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Five. Five cigarettes in my mouth.

[James Acaster]

He's loving it. And he's flipping the bird to the camera, I think, as well.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. That was me at my truest form, I think.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And I got really long hair that's all bunching up around the back like a big curly mullet.

[James Acaster]

Disgusting.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it's gross.

[Aheer Shah]

I remember you in those days.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, you remember me. Big, big mullet.

[Aheer Shah]

Five, six days, swearing at everyone. Cosplay. Not the nice, cheeky boy that you think of now.

[James Acaster]

No, exactly.

[Ed Gamble]

No. I was a legend back then.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So that was when you got into food, was it?

[Aheer Shah]

When you kept smoking, so started cooking loads as a result, and then more so for quite a while, I lived quite near Borough Market. See lots of sort of very, very swish stalls there, those very nice restaurants. And so occasionally, you know, a couple of. Yeah, every now and then you'd be like, oh, do you know what? I'm going to treat myself to some fancy veg. What the hell is that? That squash looks like it's alien. I'm going to get that. How does that work? And so, yeah, like, being able to sort of live near somewhere like that and do that sort of.

[Ed Gamble]

Were there any. Were there any dishes that you discovered that you could make then that you still return to now.

[Aheer Shah]

Well, I think that everything that I really wanted to get good at, and I'm nowhere near as good at, was all of the food that I grew up eating, which was. So I'm vegetarian, and this is all like, Gujarati vegetarian food food. And I love the fact that sort of every sort of individual, like, dining culture from around the world has basically come up with whatever sort of dietary restrictions there might be or requirements. It's like you're still getting a balanced meal all on the same plate. Just because through thousands of years of trial and error, people have ended up in this situation. I'm like, wow, I want to be able to do that, you know, and not feel that I'm going to a restaurant. And, yeah, everyone around me is having steak. And then, you know what? We had the portobello mushroom period. A dark time for the community.

[James Acaster]

Benito's shaking his head.

[Ed Gamble]

You're speaking. Benito's language.

[Aheer Shah]

Got replaced. But I thought that we were through the beetroot period. We seem to be re Entering the beetroot period. And the problem is, is that if you go somewhere and eat a lot of beetroot and the following day you forget that you have eaten lots of

[Ed Gamble]

beetroot, you've got to set an alarm.

[Aheer Shah]

You wake up and you go to the loo and you're like, well, I guess I need to text my family that this is it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, right.

[Ed Gamble]

We've mentioned this before on the podcast. I. I am in favor of setting an alarm for eight hours time that just says you've had beats because you need. You need that. Because when you. You go toilet and then the alarm goes off, you're like, thank God for that. But honestly, yeah, that's a scary moment.

[James Acaster]

I checked on a friend once, a friend of mine. A friend of mine had beetroot, used the toilet.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I went in after him. I was like, he didn't flush. Well, there was. I think he'd flush, but there was still remnants. It's red, so it's like Ribena. Yeah. Oh, my God. I said to him, dude, are you. Are you okay? And he went, beat you. But.

[Aheer Shah]

So that was the stuff. And I'm sort of nowhere near as good at making any of that stuff as the sort of people who made it for me when I was growing up. And I remember when I was trying to learn this conversation with my mum where I was like, I've been doing this for a while now, and it's just like, I just feel Like, I'm not getting the same sort of results. Like, is there anything. And she's just like, oh, here. It's just a matter of time. In about five. And this is after a couple of months. So I'm thinking she's going to say five months. She's like, after about five years, you'll be able to. Who's got time for this?

[Ed Gamble]

The same thing every day for five years. And it will eventually taste nice.

[Aheer Shah]

And I'm operating on a comparatively easy mode in doing all of this. So a story of when my maternal grandmother, the day after she got married, and this is 1955, it's an arranged marriage in India. She finds herself in this, like, new family's house and everything. Everyone's out for the day. And she's like, 19 years old, making dough for the rotlis, the chapatis for later that evening. And monkey leapt in through the window and stole the dough and ran off with the dough.

[James Acaster]

So up El Street.

[Aheer Shah]

So she's stole the dough.

[James Acaster]

You're gonna have to slow the story down now because it's too much for him that a monkey jumped through the window and stole the dough.

[Ed Gamble]

Is your grandmother, like, nervous because she's

[Aheer Shah]

in a new house that's basically a child?

[Ed Gamble]

I've got to make this dough. I gotta make it perfect for my new family. Monkey comes in, nicks it, fucks off really quickly. That is perfect.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And being told the. And I was just there being like, I'm like, the worst wife ever. This goddamn monkey is taken away because

[Ed Gamble]

wives should learn how to punch monkeys, as we all know.

[Aheer Shah]

Exactly, exactly. But when you're that new to the game, you don't like. Yesterday was my first wedding anniversary.

[Ed Gamble]

Happy anniversary.

[Aheer Shah]

After a year, my wife punched three monkeys yesterday. Ladder, box dragged, steal our dough.

[James Acaster]

Think the monkey knew that. When the monkey got back to its mates, it was like, I stole this off. She's about to get married, she's so nervous. Yeah. It's 19.

[Ed Gamble]

The other monkeys are going, you stole the dough, man. You got to wait until it's cooked.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You're the stupidest monkey in the gang.

[Ed Gamble]

Go back and steal a pan.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And there's actually now a very successful restaurant in that village run by the monkeys.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. All of it's stolen from new brides. I think there is.

[Ed Gamble]

I think there is a monkey restaurant

[James Acaster]

somewhere other than where the monkeys do make stuff.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. There's a monkey restaurant in Japan, apparently.

[James Acaster]

What?

[Ed Gamble]

I'm not sure if they make the food they bring you the food. Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Right. Penance.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

For their thievery.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

This is what I hope that this is now, what's happening in heaven to my grandmother.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Everyone sits down and monkeys bring her, Bring her food.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Acaster]

All of it's raw, though. It's all raw.

[Ed Gamble]

It's all raw. She's still got a cookie.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. That's on account of her sims. She wasn't a perfect baby angel then. It had been cooked food.

[James Acaster]

Your show ends. It's hitting Netflix. Very exciting stuff. What can you tell people who haven't seen the show about the show?

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. So this is the stand up show that I first did in 2023 and came out on Netflix September 2024. And yeah, this is a. A show that basically started when I was engaged and was just thinking about, I think when you go through like big life shifts into a new role, you're naturally like, well, who are my examples to learn by? Right. I was thinking, right, the longest marriage in my family that I can think of was the one between my mum's parents. Right. Which started off with the dough being stolen by the monkey. That's not even mentioned in the show.

[James Acaster]

That's not even mentioned in the show. Imagine that. Imagine having a monkey jumping through a window.

[Ed Gamble]

That's the. That's the whole show if I'm writing it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm dressed as a monkey on the poster.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. They make you dress like a cucumber instead.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. There he is as a cucumber again. This guy loves cucumbers.

[Ed Gamble]

We can't advertise carbohydrates on the tube. Yeah. Give the monkey some cucumbers.

[James Acaster]

Monkey told in the dough. Got to change that.

[Aheer Shah]

But yeah, so it started just thinking about them and their lives really. And the fact that at the time, my granddad, when he was younger than I was at the time, was the first member of our family to come to the UK, which is now 60 years ago, and sort of just started thinking about just the differences between their lives and experiences and what everything meant for them and means to me now as a consequence. And in some ways trying to tell the story of those 60 years in 60 minutes, particularly given that that was a generation whose they were very small in number. The stories weren't really told and were kept to themselves. Even within families. It was often very, very difficult to find out the sort of reality of what happened. Like drill down into their experiences in their younger lives. Yeah. But I think, like, it sort of all came from trying to appreciate these people from a previous generation as, like the young people when they were my age.

[James Acaster]

Right.

[Aheer Shah]

Rather than just like this image that you have of them as well. That's the oldest man and oldest woman in the world. But obviously you weren't always. Yeah. To try and.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

To try and get some sense of connection between these generations and what it shows for what's changed in this country and in the world over time.

[James Acaster]

Nice. I tried to connect with my granddad towards the end of his life, probably in his 80s or something, and I went. Went to visit him for the day and I just, I'm going to talk to him about, you know, just his life and discover, you know, learn things that I don't know about him and, like getting blood out of a stone. And at one point I was like, but, like, what was like the most. Yo. Like, what was like the best, if you look back at your life, what was like the best bit like the best area of you and you fought for a bit and you went. I went on a nice bike ride once. Okay. That was it. Okay. I guess so. Then I went back and said to my dad and I was like. He said he wanted a nice bike ride and that's it. And my dad was like, yeah, he cycled to France and went all over France and back again and all over the Alps. I was like, well, why don't you tell me that? Just tell me you went on a nice bike ride.

[Ed Gamble]

You should have delved more into the bike ride. Tell me more about this bike. Yeah, he's not just going to give it up for you, man.

[James Acaster]

Follow up question. Yeah, Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

I would love for him then to have been like, no, if I'd meant that bike ride. I said, that bike ride. What I mean is that I cycled to Tesco one time and it was just particularly nice.

[James Acaster]

The weather was perfect.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I could. My grandmother, my dad's dad just used to make shit up. So, yeah, he used to claim he was the Northern Ireland junior champion for washing up. And I believed that until I was like, 15. Yeah. And he said he shared his sandwiches with Richard Attenborough on the way back from the war. And I don't know if that's true.

[James Acaster]

You don't know?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. And he said he had a friend called Hooky who could fly. He was in the flying planes for the navy and he could recognize where he was in Britain from the roofs of the pubs. And then Hooky died in a Ken Dodd gig.

[James Acaster]

They're pretty long, those kids. Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

That's the only part of that

[James Acaster]

the

[Ed Gamble]

roofs of the pubs thing blew my mind though.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you think you could do that?

[Aheer Shah]

No, I think that that's why it blew your mind. That's basically you just. God, that's unbelievable.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, probably not true.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I mean, we really should get into your menu, really. But like, that just reminded me that a friend of mine, that kid, I think they're about 12, but has gone through a stage, absolutely obsessed with if they could get on the roof of any building. So, like, walking through London with them, this kid just kept on seeing a building with like, do you get on the roof of that building? I'll be like, I don't think so, but I bet I could. And then he'd kind of make up the interior of the building in his head to allow him to get onto the top of the. On the roof. And then as soon as he got on the roof in his imagination, he would panic genuinely, so he couldn't get down again. And he would be like, how the hell am I going to get off this roof? And I was like, mate, you're not on the roof. You just thinking about, could you get on the roof of that building? Because you're obsessed with getting on the roofs of buildings at the minute. He was like, but how are you going to get down from.

[Aheer Shah]

Really reminds me of. You ever watch those videos where an octopus gets stuck in a jar but then gets itself out of a jar and it can somehow get itself out of a jar. And my wife got incredibly concerned that if she were trapped in a very large jar, she doesn't have the same sort of like appendages and oxygen free herself from the jar. And then it became a real question of, like, what would I be willing to do in order to get her out of the jar?

[James Acaster]

Open the jar.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

No, no, no.

[Aheer Shah]

But it's so big, apparently the jar cannot just be opened. It's that I would have to be willing to put myself through certain trials in order to.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, that she's invented.

[Aheer Shah]

Yes, exactly.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, okay.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's not just opening a jar. No, you have to go through.

[Aheer Shah]

What would you be willing to go through to free me from a jar that does not exist?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

What was it? What was the most you were willing

[Ed Gamble]

at any point, did you draw the line and go, no, I'm just leaving you in the jar.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, you stay in the jar at that point.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. That was not taken to be within the spirit of the game.

[James Acaster]

Right, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And fair enough.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. You're never gonna have to do it. So you may as well say, yeah, I'd do that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. For every single stage, deep down, there's some things you wouldn't do to let your wife out of a jar.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Not doing that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Obviously, after a while, like, a certain list of demands are given, and it's just like. Yeah. Just poke some holes in the top for a while.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You'll be fine. Pop you on the shelf. Hyper monkey doesn't come into the ski,

[James Acaster]

gets in the hole. Yeah. Still a sparkling water.

[Aheer Shah]

I'm gonna go with sparkling water, But I've heard a bad thing about sparkling water.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Cool.

[Aheer Shah]

So a friend of mine had to go to the dentist recently, and they were like, you have no enamel left on your teeth or whatever. It's. It's all worn down.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

What have you been doing? And it's because he only drinks sparkling water.

[James Acaster]

Only.

[Aheer Shah]

He drinks, like. Yeah. Exclusively sparkling. Well, I don't know if that's what he's brushing his teeth with or whatever,

[Ed Gamble]

but that's surely not advised by any dentist. You know how. You know, it's like 8 out of 10 dentists recommend this toothpaste. You always think about the two. Don't.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Are they.

[Ed Gamble]

The two are like, brush your teeth with sparkling water.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Who gives a shit?

[Aheer Shah]

And that's who he'd been seeing previously.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. He'd been seeing one of the two.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. But so I. I had no idea because you're just like, that's just water with some bubbles in it.

[James Acaster]

Sure.

[Aheer Shah]

How could that be? That's good. If anything, it might not be as good. It might be better for you than regular water.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah. Fancy.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, Exactly.

[Ed Gamble]

But I do think drinking it more than still water does feel inherently like a bad idea because it is still fizzy.

[James Acaster]

I don't see how you do it anyway, even, like, beyond that.

[Ed Gamble]

He might have it coming out his taps. You can get the taps.

[James Acaster]

Does Fend have it coming out?

[Aheer Shah]

He has it coming out of his tap. Yeah. He's the first person I. I'd ever seen who had it coming out of a tap.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Aheer Shah]

And I was like, you know, like in the. Like in the 16th century, when everyone would, like, marvel at the king because he had gout. How rich do you have to be in order to have this terrible condition and everything? And it's like, got no teeth left because water comes out my tap. He's just putting on, like, six fur coats.

[Ed Gamble]

His smile that. His teeth are worn down to little nubs.

[Aheer Shah]

This is the fanciest guy in the world.

[Ed Gamble]

Guy must be loaded.

[James Acaster]

He might be brushed his teeth of it, then. Yeah, this guy could.

[Ed Gamble]

If it's coming out.

[James Acaster]

Showering.

[Aheer Shah]

Showering, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Loving it.

[Aheer Shah]

Just like tiny bullets.

[Ed Gamble]

Boiling his pasta in it and stuff.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You would be able to tell when it's come to the boil.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I would do that, actually, for a week. I'd do everything with sparkly water.

[James Acaster]

I think you tried to do everything.

[Ed Gamble]

And I just walk around the house going, I'm living a sparkling life.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, you're living a little sparkling life.

[Aheer Shah]

You got like, you know, like a bum gun.

[Ed Gamble]

A bum gun? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Have you had that next to the loop?

[Ed Gamble]

Sparkling bum.

[James Acaster]

Well, that'd be good. I would love the Sparkling bum gun.

[Aheer Shah]

It's actually my rap name.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. It's gotta be Sparkling bum Gun.

[Ed Gamble]

Sparkling bum Gun. Imagine. I don't know if I'd like it or not.

[James Acaster]

I would love it. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the three of us, I'm talking about bonito as well. Have all been to Japan this year, and what a highlight that is. Yeah, the. The. The toilets there. Yeah, absolutely. Loved them. Every single time.

[Aheer Shah]

But do you think that they would have been aided by sparkling water?

[Ed Gamble]

I think so.

[James Acaster]

If I was your rich friend with no teeth, I would get a Japanese toilet and fill it with sparkling water.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

And never leave the house. Never leave the toilet.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't think they fill the toilets with water to shoot up your butt. I think they're connected to the water supply.

[Aheer Shah]

What have you been doing?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I just opened the cistern, put my butt in there, slosh it around. Not supposed to do that.

[Ed Gamble]

Scream arigato at the top of your voice and leave the restaurant with a soaking wet butt.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. This sparkling water you're having, are you gonna be able to get it out your head that it's just drawing your teeth? Are you gonna be able to have this in a relaxed way?

[Aheer Shah]

Well, I think that that's fine. Surely one of the things in a dream restaurant has to be like, there are no, like, consequences of, like. It's not like. Oh. And the following morning, after I came out of the dream restaurant, I had serious enamel issues.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I think so. And also, you're not drinking sparkling. You don't have it coming out your taps.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, exactly. It's a special treat.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a special treat. Having it is a special treat. You're not like, oh, God, it's killing my teeth.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

It's like there's all sorts of situations like it's. I might be allergic to genies. I don't know, I've not had one yet. But let's not add that into the fantasy of this situation. It's like we need to. Yes. And this.

[James Acaster]

Yes. Yes. Oh, I'm. Yes. Handed it. I'm just worried that you might be. Yeah. You might be drinking it, thinking, oh, my teeth are. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But it's like with most foods that are nice. Yeah. You can't be thinking about, oh, God, what's this doing to my insides? Because it's a nice treat, right?

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, exactly. It's like if you like. We were away for the weekend recently for our anniversary and we had lots of very nice meals and there was a period at the end of it on the Sunday where I feel a bit, ah. I've basically just eaten butter and salt for the last 72 hours. Yeah, that'll probably do it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Good that you felt that because that proves that that's not what you're doing all of the time.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Ed Gamble]

If you were like got to the end of that and you were like, well, just another day. Yeah. That'd be worrying. Right?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Pop ups or bread again. You think you're ready and you are.

[James Acaster]

You weren't ready for that. I'm trying consciously to time and better now. I used to do it. I used to do it to surprise people and then I just got it. Ah, it's just a. I'd let the conversation naturally find an end and start doing it again. I was like, why aren't people jumping anymore?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. So I'm trying now is you let me trail off on a point and every time I think, God, I've said something really boring because James hasn't picked up the thread here and then he does pop it onto red and they're like, okay, maybe I wasn't being that boring. No, James is just waiting to find a moment. So he wasn't really listening to what I was saying.

[James Acaster]

I know what you were just saying. Before that before chat popped on top bed. I have no idea. Talking about the monkey again. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, I was thinking about the monkey.

[Aheer Shah]

Sure.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I like that.

[Aheer Shah]

This is. It's almost like James is respawning when he yells popped on. Everything before is gone.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

He's a new genie now.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, new genie, full hp.

[Ed Gamble]

I was thinking about the monkey drinking directly from the sparkling water tap.

[Aheer Shah]

Be like, what the f. Yeah, it's the newer. We're all in the gutter but some of us Are monkeys drinking from sparkling water taps?

[Ed Gamble]

The old quote, the old classic drink from the tap.

[Aheer Shah]

You want. Do you have a preference, as in out of papad or bread?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, papad. Sorry, yes. Cindy V. Picked me up on that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, she always picks us up on that, but we've never changed it.

[James Acaster]

Well, it's because, unluckily for her, Nish Kumar's mother then disagreed with her and I was like, well, I'm doing my. Bina says. Yeah, yeah, bad luck.

[Ed Gamble]

Bina's the boss.

[James Acaster]

Yes. Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

So I'm gonna go with Barbara, but I'm gonna go with. And I think that this is probably a thing that we'll get into heaps over this, which is that basically until I was pretty much like, until I was at university, I'd never tried what in most of the UK is thought of as, like, an Indian restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Right.

[Aheer Shah]

Indian food.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Right. Because that's a. What we were eating at home. We pretty much never went to restaurants when I was growing up anyway, on the few instances that we did, sometimes we would go to what I considered to be Indian restaurants. But because I grew up in, like, I grew up in Wembley, Northwest London, and my grandmother and grandfather were in Alperton, and there's this long road, Ealing Road and Wembley. Howard. There's lots of this big sort of particularly Gujarati community there. And particularly at the time. Right. So we would go to, you know, restaurants that I would consider Indian restaurants, but it's because it was sort of regional Gujarati.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Stuff. Right. And so it would be identifiable, therefore,

[Ed Gamble]

to be more like the stuff that you're having. Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And so when I started going to places and they were like, do you want papadoms? And it's this, like, stack of deep fried things, I was just like, well, like, it's very delicious, but what is this?

[Ed Gamble]

Right.

[Aheer Shah]

Because I was used to sort of stuff that was roasted over a fire, which is really lovely. And that's what I would rather have. But, yeah, it's just this interesting thing of. And I think that it's because when sort of Indian restaurants started becoming a major thing in the uk, lots of the people who were founding these restaurants were from Sylhet in Bangladesh, or what is now Bangladesh at the time, but still have been East Pakistan. And I gather that historically it was just these families being like, well, let's just. People know the word Indian more.

[Ed Gamble]

Right? Yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

So we'll put that name, like, on it. And these became what were understood in the popular consciousness as Indian restaurants. And so When I was. I was like, oh, cool, we're all going to an Indian restaurant. And then it was incredibly different from everything, but. But it sort of strikes me as being similar to, you know, if someone were to go to, like, a Spanish person going to a European restaurant and suddenly being served Swedish food or whatever. Like, technically, it's like, well, it's the same continent, mate.

[Ed Gamble]

It's like, well, yeah, but it's wildly different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. But, yeah, because I think British Indian food to me is like, Indian restaurants in Britain are so specific, like, the taste of everything. And it's so nostalgic, I think, for us just to, like, sit down and eat a curry. I love, like, obviously, in an almost deserted restaurant, that's what it needs to be.

[Aheer Shah]

But it's like a. It's like, if you've ever had so. Because these things very naturally will then go towards the sort of palette of the country and the customers that they're in. Like, have you ever had, like, pizza hut on McDonald's in, like, I don't know, like, somewhere in Asia? Right. Like something that you really associate with being a. Yeah, I've had.

[Ed Gamble]

I've had McDonald's in Japan once, which is great. They do a prawn burger. I've had McDonald's in Bahrain Airport. Lovely. Chicken pitta. That was good.

[James Acaster]

I'm enjoying this segment of the show. Where's Ed had McDonald's?

[Ed Gamble]

I think that might be it, you know, because then I. Then I think I was like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this?

[Aheer Shah]

But, like, on the one hand, yeah, I don't want to be. It's. It's really, really great to experience as many different things as you want. And, like, you know, like, I recently, for the first time, I went to, like, a Georgian restaurant. Right. I'd never had that before. I don't know if that's quote unquote, if there are Georgian food snobs who would turn their nose up to the specific. But it was great and I had a wonderful experience and I'd never tried that stuff before. Lovely. Right. So definitely want to encourage. To do as much of that stuff as possible. But I guess the point is it becomes kind of like. Because it's just that bit removed from what you're used to if you're growing up with it being done in a very particular style. It's sort of like when. When I've had, like, pizza in India and just being like, oh, this just feels a bit different. Yeah, Slightly like Uncanny valley situation.

[Ed Gamble]

It's interesting, though, isn't it? The way that, yeah, different. Different nations will twist certain classic things and then that becomes what they used to. And if they went to Italy and had pizza, they'd be like, nothing like that. Yeah, this isn't pizza, mate.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, there's an Indian stand up Kanan Gill, who's got a really good bit about this, of going to Italy and having pizza and just being like, where are the chilies? And of course, of course.

[James Acaster]

Because that's what you do. So you would like the puppet that you grew up eating that was roasted over a fire.

[Aheer Shah]

And I would like some of it raw as well. I would like to be able to eat as much of it raw.

[James Acaster]

You know who you're tempting?

[Aheer Shah]

Who am I tempting?

[James Acaster]

That monkey's gonna come in if you've got a roar knocking about.

[Aheer Shah]

No. And do you know what?

[James Acaster]

The window.

[Aheer Shah]

No, no, the windows are open. I'm just brave eating a lot of the rock because you get like, you know, it's like all of the stuff that you get told by your parents when you're a kid of like, oh, then the tree will grow in your belly. And, like, all of this sort of thing.

[James Acaster]

I'm like.

[Aheer Shah]

But you know when they try and pull that shit on you when you're in your 30s, whatever. I'm just there, like, snacking on some lovely raw thing. And my mother is insisting that in some sort of spurious way, this is bad for me. I don't believe you at all.

[Ed Gamble]

I lasted a long time.

[Aheer Shah]

I lasted a long time. I was eating this raw all the time, and I was sneaking in, doing this constantly. If it were a death sentence, I'd be dead already.

[James Acaster]

So ratio of raw stuff to the roasted stuff. What are you having for your dream meal? Are you having, like, more raw than the roast?

[Ed Gamble]

Is it raw while you wait? Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

So, like, have one that I'm not.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Like one's. One's on the fire while I'm having a raw.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Nice.

[Ed Gamble]

I like that.

[James Acaster]

So it's about 50. 50. Yeah, yeah. You're constantly doing that.

[Ed Gamble]

Or do you want a 50? 51 where half of it's been roasted in the fire and half's left raw.

[Aheer Shah]

Oh, that's actually a really good idea.

[Ed Gamble]

And then you could be breaking different bits off, putting them together to see what it's like together.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

I like that idea a lot. Want to upskill on one of the most effective ad channels out there with Acast Ads Academy? You can learn Everything you need to plan and run podcast advertising campaigns completely free. Whether you're new to audio or ready to sharpen your skills, our self paced courses fit your schedule and finish with an industry recognized certification. So if you want to grow your expertise and stand out in a competitive industry, head to go.acast.com academy.

[James Acaster]

What's your dream starter?

[Aheer Shah]

My dream starter. So I'm gonna go with bani bori, which I A, adore. B, you can basically have infinity pani puri. The idea of pani puri now always makes me laugh because my wife's Irish and knows a few words of Gujarati that she sort of picked up over time and at one stage, not realizing that it sounded exactly like this, looked at me and said, pani means water and puri means buri. And it was exactly like mono means one and rail means rail. Imagine it like, was it Lyle Langley at the Chalkboard convincing a town in order to con everyone.

[James Acaster]

Lyle.

[Aheer Shah]

Bani puri, which was very. For those who have not had Bani Bhuri before. So it's like little crisp sort of puffs of dough again. You've protected it from the monkey.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, you're fine.

[James Acaster]

I can get that too deep right there.

[Aheer Shah]

They've been sort of puffed up almost into little spheres. I don't know what magic they're able to do in order to make this happen, but one side of the sphere is sort of somehow thicker than the other. And you can like poke the thinner one with your finger. You can put. You have some like boiled chickpeas in there, some potato in there, some sort of mung beans. You can have it there, like all sorts of things. And then you top it off with water that's like got a coriander chili, sort of spiced water.

[Ed Gamble]

We all know what your friend's doing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Sparkling water.

[James Acaster]

Oh, my God.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, I try one.

[James Acaster]

Sparkling.

[Aheer Shah]

Sparkling. This is what's known as fusion cuisine.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, that's what we're talking about.

[Ed Gamble]

Sparkling. Buddy Murray, man.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. So, I mean, you. You must both be. Both be fans.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, absolutely.

[James Acaster]

Love them. Yeah. Apart from the one I had in Rome.

[Ed Gamble]

In Rome.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, in Rome.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, this is another example of.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah. Because have you ever had one that the water is mint flavored?

[Aheer Shah]

Not like solely mint. Mint in it, for sure.

[James Acaster]

It was bad. It was like mouth judgment. Yeah. The whole meal was like the worst meal I've ever had. It was a real bad meat. I've spoke about it on the podcast before.

[Aheer Shah]

Pani Poirier. With Listerine.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, it was basically that. And. And then I had a cocktail that was made with the same thing that was definitely in the pani poi. So it's like, well, this guy's now

[Aheer Shah]

done that creme de month.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, it was so gross. And I, I spoke about the podcast before, but he came up to me and I'd finished my main course and went, oh, you finished it, that's cool. So like, that was like. That was like the guy. No one ever did that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So that is the only time I've had him and it's been bad everywhere else.

[Aheer Shah]

So you're sort of always brilliant. Like, do you think that you were being prank this meal?

[James Acaster]

I. I was starting to think, is it going to be like something that this is like a fake, a fake restaurant?

[Ed Gamble]

It's Michael McIntyre's big shows.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Michael McIntyre's gonna come out.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Do you ever get those texts when Michael McIntyre has a comedian on and does text to all if you ever receive them.

[Aheer Shah]

I've not received a Michael McIntyre text.

[James Acaster]

I used to fall for them all the time.

[Ed Gamble]

James. James would fall for them the whole time.

[James Acaster]

Every time I get a text one

[Ed Gamble]

from Tom Allen, I got it as well. And then James was like, oh, man. Man, I didn't want to put this on a text group, but Tom Allen's just sent me a really funny text. I went, man, that's Michael McIntyre's thing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, got me on it. But then I got wise to it. I. And like Katherine Ryan went on it. I got a text from Katherine Ryan on WhatsApp that was like, hey, I'm doing a routine about you in my new show. I hope you don't mind. It's about how weird you were when we first met. Let me know if you'd like some money when I do it on Graham Norton suit or something like that.

[Ed Gamble]

To be fair, that is the only one that you should have believed.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I saw that and I thought, oh, I don't. I checked with these guys and I was like, have you got this text? They were like, yeah. I was like, right, I'm not falling for that again. So I replied, my wife has died.

[Ed Gamble]

It didn't make the edit.

[James Acaster]

I don't think it didn't make the edit.

[Ed Gamble]

Neither one. The other day he responded with a picture of Michael McIntyre and yeah, Judy

[James Acaster]

Love got one for Judy Love the other day, saying, I'm going to get a Brazilian butt lift. Don't tell anyone, but they wanted photos of butts that I thought looked nice. I'VE always thought, you've got a peachy butt. Can you send me a photo of your butt? I went, yeah, one second. And then it took a while, but I think it came out really well. Here's my butt, Michael McIntyre.

[Aheer Shah]

And you just respond, oh, we're just looking for a photo. But, like, what's a butt that you really like? And you just respond one with, well, my favorite was always my wife's, but as you know, she's dead.

[James Acaster]

She rest in peace.

[Ed Gamble]

Nice.

[James Acaster]

But I should have kept it going that my wife was dead. Actually, I regret that.

[Aheer Shah]

Now I'm interested in the idea. So you had. You had Bad Bunnybury in Rome.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that was great.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, I had some Bad Bunnybury in Portugal earlier in the year. But I didn't want to believe, like, you want to like that. All right. Just because, I mean, it's a vegetarian restaurant in Portugal and everyone's white working there. I shouldn't be, like, turning my nose up. Oh, they've got panipura on the menu. That's not gonna be good, is it? So I'm like, sure, I'm gonna get that. That's probably. It's gonna be really great. Good for you, Eduardo. Give it a go.

[Ed Gamble]

Eduardo sees you ordering it, he's shitting himself in the kitchen. Oh, no.

[James Acaster]

I thought you were talking to Ed,

[Aheer Shah]

Eduardo Hammers.

[James Acaster]

Thank you,

[Ed Gamble]

Eduardo and Hammers.

[James Acaster]

Might as well change our names to that. Yeah, it was bad.

[Ed Gamble]

It was.

[James Acaster]

It was the worst. Well, now. Now, you know, you should just go in with that. You should just go like that. That's gonna be. And, like, just. Just adopt that attitude.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. That was the best Bounty party I've ever had. Is on Ealing Road. About a year ago, I was walking up to visit my grandma, and there was a shop, you know those shops which, like, seem like they'd be so upsetting to work because they're blaring out the same thing on repeat out to the street. And it was just, like, blaring out an advert for their own bani buri onto the street.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

But equally, it was the first time I'd heard it, so I was like, well, I'm gonna get some of this.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And then as I was waiting, it's like, okay, this is maddening. And then the second that I ate one, it's like, I'm staying here longer.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And ordering more. And it's almost like that. It then became almost meditative because you

[Ed Gamble]

were connecting it with that Titanic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Again and again. I Was like the Winter Soldier, I think.

[James Acaster]

Were you jet lagged and love pranks?

[Ed Gamble]

The idea of only doing one thing as a food vendor is very appealing to me. I think if someone does one thing, you're like, that's gotta be good.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And if they're blaring an advert out for it over and over again, you're like, that's double gotta be good.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Imagine if you'd got them and they were rubbish.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You're like, guys, what are you doing?

[Aheer Shah]

What would be your one thing if you were a food vendor with one thing.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, that's good. Something simple, I think. Cause I can't. I don't trust myself to cook anything too fancy. And also you want something that's good on the go. This is. This is like that. That show about fairgrounds.

[James Acaster]

Deep fried masters.

[Ed Gamble]

Deep fried masters, yeah. You gotta get something that's good on the go.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But there may be like a. Just a really good cheese toastie or something. Is that boring? I'm thinking about the scale as well.

[James Acaster]

If it's like the best cheese toasty anyone's ever had, they're all gonna. Everyone's gonna love it.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm thinking about the mar.

[James Acaster]

My brain made. I literally thought you said, I'm thinking about the margarine.

[Ed Gamble]

Using margarine.

[James Acaster]

I was like, yeah, that's a bit of a shit. She's toast. Do you remember what this place was called?

[Aheer Shah]

The which. The place on Alienwood.

[James Acaster]

Because everyone's gonna want to know it

[Aheer Shah]

is Rekri Paniburi is the top one. Which. Yeah. Which I now recall because I heard it 700 times.

[James Acaster]

That is funny that you initially didn't recall it.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I don't know what that place was called.

[Aheer Shah]

Ye.

[James Acaster]

Constantly.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. They building that entire pani puri and then just giving you the tray of them. So they're putting in the water. You're not customizing it yourself or anything.

[Aheer Shah]

They made. They made a little tray.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna have to go there.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. And you're doing them in one.

[Aheer Shah]

I'm doing them one, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It may. That's the sort of food that makes me think of you.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because of the hand gesture in the hand gesture.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

James loves just throwing things in his mouth one after another walking down the street normally. So you can do that in Ealing?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I can do it in England.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. I love this sort of thing though. Like it's something that you don't really get in the UK and I suppose like different cities and places have it in different ways. Like your slice of pizza in New York or the. Is it Cicchetti or Jechetti or however it's pronounced in Venice and everything, where you've just got like. You get like a thing and put it in your. And then it's done. Yeah, yeah, but we don't really have that in London.

[Ed Gamble]

No, I guess we don't. Now I'm trying to think of something. Sausage roll, maybe.

[Aheer Shah]

I guess that's.

[James Acaster]

Keep all this. Keep keeping it. Thinking about stuff you could eat and walk around.

[Ed Gamble]

Sausage roll.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, no, you're right.

[Ed Gamble]

That's not in and done, is it? That's a few bites.

[James Acaster]

You know, there's the Colonel's popcorn chicken.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say that's a London thing.

[James Acaster]

We got it in London.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, we have it in London. Yeah, we got the paddy puri in London as well. But we're not saying it's British food. Kentucky Fried Chicken, man. Sausage roll. That pani puri sounds great. That's the one you want from there.

[James Acaster]

That's what you want for your dream

[Ed Gamble]

as you eat it. Do you want the advert blaring into the dream restaurant as well?

[Aheer Shah]

Actually, that would be very nice.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

For it to become like a meditative harmony in the background. It's the aum of pani puri.

[James Acaster]

I mean. Cause it's your off menu dream meal. Ed and I. Because Ed and I do adverts all the time on this podcast. We're very good at it. If you like, we could record a special one for that. For that place.

[Aheer Shah]

I think that we just advertise, see if we can. See if we can find what it sounds like.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, we can replicate that. Yeah, we're really good at those.

[Ed Gamble]

To us, to a certain extent. We can replicate.

[James Acaster]

Yes. Depends. I'll do every bar here. If it gets him out of a jar. Your dream main course.

[Aheer Shah]

I think that for the dream main course, I would really like a very, very well done Thai and have a bunch of different sort of small portions of a bunch of different vegetarian caries. Everything. Have something a bit sweet. Like to have everything all at once and be able to have a bunch of things I think would be my favorite. And I think that. But the style, I think that I specifically want this in is that often when you go to like, events, right? Like. Like just like family events, like a large thing has been put on and it doesn't. Like it could be a sad thing or a happy thing or whatever, but a very common Thing which you may have encountered is these, like, segmented plastic plates that are all, like, stacked on top of one another. Everyone, like, takes a. Like, one of these plastic plates that has, like. And you just construct a diary for yourself out of all of these things. And sort of. Whether the event is sort of happy or sad or whatever it might be, I always associate, like, the specific image of that style of plate with. And everyone, like, for whatever reason, everyone I love is here.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Aheer Shah]

We're together and something's happening and we're all leading in this way with, like, this really, like, thin napkin and a plastic spoon and our hands.

[Ed Gamble]

It's nice you associate that plate with family and all being together, because I think most white people would associate that tray with prison. First. First thing I thought of. Oh, oh, a prison tray. I've seen those in orange is the new black.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. To be fair, they're with everyone they love. They all really get on. They're not interested. It looks really nice in prison.

[Ed Gamble]

Some of them really get on.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Well, that's quite nice.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. I really realized, as I moved through this, I really realized that increasingly what I'm going to be describing is a meal I could have on any given day in a style you associate with being locked up. And it's like. So it's on the one hand, something I have complete freedom to do.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And on the other, the most total restriction of freedom imaginable.

[James Acaster]

For us.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, for us. Six. For. For us. No, this. This sounds great, though. So I think you should take us through. How many segments are there normally on the tray? Would you say there's.

[Aheer Shah]

You can. There are a variety of styles for this. You know, it's not. It's. They're not provided by Serco. There's not a tremendous markup. There's not a PFI contract does not mean that we are paying 12 pounds per se. Plastic plate to this day, because it was kept in 2003. It's all gonna be all right, but there'll be maybe like eight. Let's call it eight.

[James Acaster]

Oh, that's good.

[Ed Gamble]

Here's my question. Do you ever get to the point where you're like, I wish there was one segment that was way bigger because there's one thing you like more of and you're putting it in the segment. You're like, oh, no, I'm gonna have to keep stuff. I'm gonna have to double this. Go, double segment, segment.

[James Acaster]

Sure. Yeah. He wouldn't like that.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm stressing out about it.

[James Acaster]

I wouldn't like that. I wouldn't like going double seg. He'd want a different thing.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a bigger segment for, like. For rice.

[Aheer Shah]

Yes. Yes, there is.

[Ed Gamble]

So I'm gonna use that for my favorite curry.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

He's happy now.

[Ed Gamble]

And I'll use it for the list of.

[James Acaster]

He's happy.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a small segment for rice.

[James Acaster]

His whole demeanor's change. He's really happy now that he's realized

[Aheer Shah]

he can do that again. And this is the freedom that you have.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what if the prison guard sees.

[James Acaster]

What if Pornstache sees it?

[Ed Gamble]

Take us through some of. Take us through what's going in.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. So probably. Well, you would have sort of some sort of bread, be that like rotli or chapati or puri. In this instance, I would probably want a puri. Yeah, you would have your rice. You might sort of add to stuff at the end to sort of help you mop stuff up. But you'd have something for dar and Gujarati. Dar tends to be like. It's not like. Like, you know, like the thick makhanida and stuff that you get. Like, you know, your classic dishoom black dal, which is very sort of like thick and rich and buttery and absolutely delicious.

[Ed Gamble]

Don't get me wrong.

[Aheer Shah]

Like, I tried to make it at home, failed miserably. Very upset.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. It's insane, that dal.

[Aheer Shah]

It's dangerous.

[Ed Gamble]

It takes five months.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You'll get there in the end every day.

[Aheer Shah]

But so the. It tends to be a bit, like, a bit thinner. It's more like a soup. Then you might have maybe some curry, which is like a soup that you make with yogurt, gram flour, cumin, ginger, garlic, chilli, water. Sort of like yogurt soup as well. Might have a few curries made with different vegetables. And what I really love about this is that basically because it's all based on. On spice mixes and the way that you're doing things on that end, then the ingredient that you then put in to carry that, you know, can matter, and you're doing different things for different reasons. And you wouldn't necessarily use exactly the same spice blend for anything, but it makes it a bit like, oh, what have I got around? All right. Well, I can make that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

All of a sudden. Oh, crap. All I've got is a tin of butter beans in the house. Well, that can be delicious in 15 minutes.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Nice.

[Aheer Shah]

And it's hot oil, aspatina, turmeric, some sort of whole spice. Then bit later in the thing, you might have Chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, and just the ways that you can, like, build and layer things and make meals that are incredibly cheap and feed, like, a large number of people for not very much money. Which is. Yeah, the sort of stuff that you grow up eating. And I think that that's such a lovely.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, as long as you've got those. But the basic sort of building blocks for it. You can add whatever you like into it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm really hungry now. Put that out there.

[James Acaster]

Would you like this to be a particular. For your main course? And you're having this. These plates and you're having all these different things. Would you like it to be a certain specific family occasion?

[Ed Gamble]

Good question.

[Aheer Shah]

I would like.

[Ed Gamble]

Proud of yourself, wouldn't you?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

So we. We used to have these things when I was a kid where occasionally my dad was mates with, like, a few musicians and stuff in India. And when they would come over to the UK and they needed somewhere to stay, like they were performing a show in the uk but they needed someone to stay. And there was sort of this deal that was worked out where the musician would stay at our family home and then as like, a thanks for being able to stay with us while they were doing that show, would put on, like, a really small concert in the living room.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, nice.

[Aheer Shah]

Just. And, like, family and friends would come round and so you'd have guy with the harmonium, guy with a doubler in the living room playing this, like, really, really beautiful music. And these concerts that would tend to be, like, almost discursive. Right. Like, there would be a piece of music and then pause and the guy would just be like. Like twiddling around on the harmonium. But recite a bit of poetry while doing that. Yeah. And everyone sits there, like, eating out of these plates, this lovely food and listening to this music, everything. So we're also building a soundscape for the dream restaurant. We've had a rekripani puri 7 million times. And then that transitions into.

[Ed Gamble]

Does it need to transition? Because maybe the guy in the harmonium could be doing a version of Direct Me.

[Aheer Shah]

I want there to be like a button. Like, you know how on, like, Fire in the Booth, Charlie Sloth will press a button and it will just do the big everything perfect. So I want every sort of the. The harmonium's going, the doublers going. There's sort of singing, there's poetry, everything. And every so often, Charlie Sloth is pressing a button that makes the speakers Blair Recti Panipuri yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Love that.

[James Acaster]

Have you ever stayed at someone's house as a comedian? Just stayed over because you had a gig and then you stayed over at their house.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, but I've not then like done a gig in their living room.

[James Acaster]

Dream side dish then. Now, before we started the podcast today, you said that on the way here, you remembered, oh, I've got to do a side dish as well. Which I can see why you would think that, because. Cause you've got so many components on this main course in this plate. Choosing the side is a bit tricky.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, well, so that's why this is going entirely different. And it's cheesy garlic bread from Pizza Hut.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[James Acaster]

What country's the Pizza Hut in?

[Ed Gamble]

I love the sharp left turn. And the thing is, people would look at that and go, why are you doing that? That's madness. But I think that works.

[James Acaster]

I think it'd be delicious with the main course.

[Aheer Shah]

And it's because I remembered when I was walking, talking here of like, so the only sort of other restaurants that we ever like, we would go to, like Sagoni's once a year on Ealing Road or whatever. And the other one would be, maybe you would go to Pizza Hut on Wembley High Road where it existed. Right. And this was to place it in time. So I remember it's like the first experience that I'd have at a restaurant and someone asking whether you wanted the smoking area or the non smoking area.

[James Acaster]

Right.

[Aheer Shah]

Just like, just every element of it was aggressively 90s. Right. It's like wearing Pizza Hut on a high road. And I'm giving cancer to a child. I do not care. That's great. And we would sit in there not smoking out yet because.

[Ed Gamble]

But that never made a difference.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because you could be in a chair.

[Aheer Shah]

You know how gas works.

[Ed Gamble]

Right. It's.

[James Acaster]

I always think about Lee Evans for that. Lee Evans did a whole thing about how does the smoke know? Yeah. And then would do an act out of the smoke, going across this, moving his whole body really fluidly and then go, oh, no, we're not allowed. And I do like that mime kind of thing of like miming the wall and then move along. He's fucking good.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

I remember like, you know how when you're a child and you don't really have any conception of how money works?

[James Acaster]

Sure.

[Aheer Shah]

And at the time, maybe it was two pounds, the cheesy garlic bread at Pizza Hut. Now it's probably about 4, 55 pounds, something like that.

[Ed Gamble]

40, 48 pounds.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. Who's doing any of this without a voucher?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Aheer Shah]

But when you're in the restaurant and it is a restaurant, it's a restaurant. Yeah. And I really remember thinking when I was a child once, thinking, thinking if I had a really amazing job one day, like, how old are you?

[James Acaster]

When you think of this, how old are you?

[Aheer Shah]

I'm like 10.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, great. If I'd have any amazing job.

[Aheer Shah]

If when I was growing up I had like an amazing, like incredibly well paid job, I could have specifically a portion of cheesy garlic bread from Pizza Hut every day if I wanted to. And it was like those things of when you're a kid and you're like, sometimes you can't get an ice cream from the ice cream van or whatever. Well, when I'm a grown up, every time I see an ice cream van I'm going to get an ice cream. And then obviously you don't.

[Ed Gamble]

Obviously don't.

[Aheer Shah]

But like the realization occasionally when you walk past one and you're like, I could do this. Yeah, yeah, I could do. No one, no one can tell me, no one can tell me apart from a strong genetic history of diabetes that I cannot or must not do this. And so I'm going to do it.

[Ed Gamble]

Nothing.

[Aheer Shah]

Can I like some syrup? Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Cheesy garlic bread. That's good stuff, man.

[Aheer Shah]

It's next level.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

What is that, cheese? It's not cheese.

[Ed Gamble]

It's some sort of Pizza Hut mix. Some sort of like branded Pizza Hut mix. It's good stuff. You get it when it, get it on delivery and it comes in the little box and it's all greasy on the bottom.

[James Acaster]

Well, like a special little garlic bread box. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It was like a small pizza box.

[Aheer Shah]

Don't act like you don't know.

[Ed Gamble]

I have not had Pizza Hut in years. I think I'm gonna get Pizza Hut.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I can tell you to get Pizza Hut. Yeah, I think you're gonna get Pizza Hut tonight.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm in Dartford tonight.

[Aheer Shah]

When's the last time you had a PHB Pizza Hut buffet?

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, God. It'll be, it'll be 20 years, I think. Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

It's never too late to go back. Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in.

[Ed Gamble]

Probably back in the five cigs in the mouth day days back then. Yeah, I got those from a cigarette bar buffet. They're always used to go hard.

[James Acaster]

No prizes for guessing what my favorite part of the Pizza Hut was.

[Ed Gamble]

Ice Cream Factory. Yeah, yeah, Easy.

[James Acaster]

And that was When I was at the age where I realized I could do whatever, you know, late teens, I'm going there with my mates now. Yeah, I can have that whenever I like. I can make as many trips as I want. Nearly. Nearly ended my life.

[Aheer Shah]

In Oregon. We're all pedestrians. We love to walk, ride and roll everywhere. And we don't let the weather stop us as much as we try. Sometimes it's hard to be seen by drivers. Not all routes have sidewalks marked crosswalks and bike lanes and low lit areas. And narrow road shoulders can be scary with cars whizzing by. That's why we should put ourselves in each other's shoes. Every time you drive, stay alert and take it slow, especially in darker weather. Let's all look out for each other so we can all get there safely. A reminder from Odot.

[James Acaster]

Dream drink.

[Aheer Shah]

So is it. Well, I suppose the thing is, like, is this something that I have to drink throughout the meal that changes the situation?

[James Acaster]

It's up to you. We've had people choose multiple drinks in the past and have, like, drinks they have throughout the meal, drinks they have for each course or just one drink that is their dream drink. You're cool.

[Aheer Shah]

I think that at the. So at the beginning, I think of this because this is so. Three years ago today, in the afternoon, I went to a bar at. There's a hotel in St. James's called Duke's, very, like, swish place. And they have a bar there that they sell gin martini. They're very known for the gin martinis at Duke's. And what the guy does, it's like this guy comes around with, like a bar cart that looks like 200 years old. He puts like a drop of vermouth in it and then like chucks away the vermouth like it insulted his mother, puts it back on, then puts like, what I would perhaps like a tsunami of gin into the thing and then like a cursory twist of a lemon. And then you get that. And it's amazing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. We've had people talk about this before and we always plan on going. We've still never been. Joe Quinn said we'd go together and he lied.

[James Acaster]

If Florence Pugh said we'd go together. And she lied. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But to be fair, when she said it to us, we went, you're lying.

[James Acaster]

And then she insisted she wasn't.

[Ed Gamble]

If there was any chance that Florence Pugh took us for a cocktail, that was it. Gone.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. We ruined it.

[Ed Gamble]

When we immediately went, you're lying, Pugh.

[James Acaster]

You're A liar.

[Aheer Shah]

Well, I accept that. Unfortunately, others have raised this specific reason.

[Ed Gamble]

I think we're more likely. We're more likely to go with you.

[Aheer Shah]

You're more likely to go with me and be the reason that.

[Ed Gamble]

More direct access.

[Aheer Shah]

The reason that I would like to do this is that. Yeah. Late afternoon three years ago today, I went for that. That martini with a woman who I'd been going out with for five weeks at that stage. And a few hours later we were engaged. And we've now been married for a year.

[Ed Gamble]

Maybe we shouldn't go.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

So it's a drink with. I've not been since. It's a strong drink. It's a drink with a wonderful memory of a wonderful day. And you're like something. You have this drink and you. And you're like, something amazing might happen.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Aheer Shah]

And then it did.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And now. And I had to tell that story because it was the only way to get her out of the jar. She's currently trapped.

[Ed Gamble]

Now, this is a place you're only allowed to buy two as well.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Well, it's. I don't know whether it's a hard and fast rule that you're only allowed to buy two, but you definitely can't have more than two.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Because of the whole death.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because you will die. Yeah. But will it be as good as I imagine? Imagine it, because it's still up there with my things I think about quite a lot.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

We tried to go for your birthday once.

[James Acaster]

We did. So it was. But I didn't know that. So it was a surprise. My girlfriend had sorted it out and she said. But she told me, like, you know, tonight we're gonna go to Duke's. And in my head I was like, oh, man, I've meant to be going to Dukes with a head. I'd like.

[Ed Gamble]

You gotta lay the law down.

[James Acaster]

I might. I might be in trouble here, here. But whatever. He won't find out. He won't find out. But I didn't know that she had secretly organized that Air Denish and people would be coming. But it turned out on the way there, you guys had gone already to Dukes.

[Ed Gamble]

We tried to go ahead and get. Because you can't book or anything, so.

[James Acaster]

So they'd said, no, you can't come. It's fully booked. So then you guys had found another place. The Conor.

[Ed Gamble]

The Conor.

[James Acaster]

You were there. But I still didn't realize what was going on. So we went to the Konaught. But I. I was thinking, this is Duke in my head. Because I've been told we're going to Dukes. So we go into the Konaught. So I think I'm in Dukes. I see Ed and Nish and like, fuck, we gotta hide. I'm supposed to go to the Dukes with Ed. He's gonna fucking see us. We gotta get the fuck out of here. This is the fucking worst thing that could have happened. It's just like they are here for you also.

[Ed Gamble]

It is your birthday also in your head. Why would you not be annoyed with me for going to Dukes with that? You thought I was in Dukes.

[James Acaster]

Oh, you need it for Nish. You need it for God didn't prep that. If he has a go at me, I'm gonna go, are you fucking here without me? You're here with Nish.

[Ed Gamble]

Anyway, I think we drank seven martinis.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

That's too many.

[James Acaster]

It's the only time where we've tried to order more and the waitress has gone, you've been here for ages. That's what she said. You've been here for ages.

[Ed Gamble]

But they brought olives and little crispy snacks with every round. We ate too many olives.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, well, we all had too many olives.

[Ed Gamble]

Some of us saw them the next day, let's put it that way.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I saw my partners. Olives the next day, if you're. Pardon the expression.

[Ed Gamble]

But that's a lovely story though. That's a lovely, lovely memory for you. Do you go back there? Are you gonna go back there for like anniversaries and things like that?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

I think that our anniversary was. Was on a Monday. This. That seemed like, Like a, A catastrophic idea.

[Ed Gamble]

Come on, man, you're a comedian.

[James Acaster]

That's all right.

[Aheer Shah]

She's a civil servant.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But she Just bring her along for the ride. Civil servants are drinking in the week, surely.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. How will the.

[Aheer Shah]

How will the business of government. She's in the office right now taking the. Taking the government's insistences to heart.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So you like that at the beginning?

[Aheer Shah]

I like that at the beginning. And then. And fair play to, like, I got a lot of time for. And I know that it's extraordinarily difficult in the restaurant business to make money when you're not like being able to upsell booze in quite a big way. And so I know that with a lot of. I think it's really cool that there are more sort of quote unquote, like high end Indian restaurants now. Like, JKs have done amazing stuff with that and you just feel as though, like, I get why they want to push like really swish wine with that sort of. Because you got to make money. Right. But in my opinion, it doesn't really go together.

[Ed Gamble]

Sure.

[Aheer Shah]

So well. And if that's the sort of food that I'm having, like, if it were a different meal, then I'd have some nice wine. But with this sort of meal, it doesn't really make sense. So I would like properly thick mango lassi. I think that the best one I've ever had was in a restaurant in Manchester with. I was with our friend Pierre Nevelli. And it was like so thick that we basically had to eat it with spoons.

[Ed Gamble]

Fantastic.

[Aheer Shah]

And it was brilliant. And I'm really gutted because I can't remember the name of that restaurant. It was many years ago now. But there are other places that do great ones. If you're in the north of England, there's a small chain called Bundabust which you may well have been to. I think like Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds. Now might be in some more places as well. And I go there like any time I'm in one of those cities.

[Ed Gamble]

Because it's all veggie as well.

[Aheer Shah]

All veggie. And it's. Yeah, like Gujarati street food largely. And it's really, really like high quality stuff and just enjoyable. And they're more like. This goes well with pints. We're going to have a bunch of pints that this might go well with. But whenever I'm there, because I tend to go before shows or whatever and get big old. Big old manga. Lussi.

[Ed Gamble]

Nice.

[Aheer Shah]

It's all wonderful.

[James Acaster]

Great. Well, so that's your dream. Drink the Lussi. But at the start you've got the martini.

[Aheer Shah]

At the start you got the martini.

[James Acaster]

Brilliant.

[Ed Gamble]

Lovely. That's good. Because the martini's like a bit of rocket fuel at the start of the meal. But then you're not like getting smashed throughout the whole thing. You're bringing yourself back with the lassi.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. It's like, you know, you're starting out. You've got a hyperbolically boozy gin martini. You're eating an infinity of bani puri, some of which have sparkling water in the. There's a sort of thumping baseline of the regular bani buri mix going on. Everything's. Yep. You're feeling. You're feeling like you're going crazy. Like this is it for you. Then everything just chills out with your. With your segmented plastic plate and your

[James Acaster]

Pierre to join you for the lussy.

[Aheer Shah]

I think. Yes. I would like to have Pierre there with the Lussie.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. It would bring the spoons.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

We arrive at your dream dessert. What we talking?

[Aheer Shah]

Well, so quite often there would have been, like. With the main. Or go out. There would have been a bit of a sweet with that. Right, right. So quite often with your, you know, your shark. So with your curries and the bread and the Nile, you'd also have something sweet. So you got, like. There's rust, like a mango pulp that you. You often have.

[Ed Gamble]

Is that going in one of the segments?

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. So you could have that along with. Or you might have gor, which I think is called jaggery. It's like sugar cane stuff that you occasionally have. And then loads of other things that people might know if you've ever been to a shop like Ambala or whatever, you might have seen, like, you know, rasmalai, jalebi, gulab, jamun, these sorts of things.

[Ed Gamble]

Like all diabetics forbid an Indian cabinet. I stare through, press my nose up against the glass, have a look at all those things. Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

And, you know, then you see sort of older generations of your family wondering why these diagnoses have happened to them. Absolutely. Funnel this down.

[Ed Gamble]

Every year on the Radio X show that I do with Matthew Crosby, our producer, Vin, brings in, like, a selection of Indian sweets once a year, and I try them on air and I'm like, right, that's enough for me. Just little bites. Matthew then takes all of the rest of them home and eats them on the way home. And we get texts from him that don't make sense. Like, he is. He is high as hell. He's going mad. When he used to drive back from the studio, we used to worry about him because he put them on the car seat, they'd be driving back just like, popping all these sweets in his mouth, just like buzzing off his head. So sweet.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Yeah. I remember the first time I had those as a kid and just being like, I'm in heaven. This is the best. I'm converting. We went and had him, I think, at a mosque. And I was like, this is the best fucking thing in the. I go home and tell my parents I'm not a Christian anymore. Great.

[Aheer Shah]

But I feel as though that's almost like it's a bit cheating, right, to say that as part of the main course, you've got a nice sweet thing on the side. And so I was like, right, well, I've got to come up with dessert and I am almost literally having my cake and eating it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Situation.

[Ed Gamble]

Right.

[Aheer Shah]

So I've got to come up also,

[Ed Gamble]

like, it's part of the thing. Right. It's like, traditionally what you would get.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And also, even if it's not, you can just make up anything and say it's a tradition. We'll just have to go, oh, how wonderful.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

There's this bit at the end where at the end of each meal, like, two white guys each give you 20 quid.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, that's such a wonderful tradition.

[James Acaster]

You could have made up any figure of money. You got up with 40 quid.

[Aheer Shah]

So I was like, right, there should be something different and not just sort of in keeping with all of the rest of the meal for dessert. And it would be ideally something that would make at least one of you furious. Your face did something absolutely fascinating then, I think. And it is not conventionally thought of as a dessert, but we're quite near there at the moment.

[James Acaster]

Here we go.

[Aheer Shah]

How's it, Jose? On Bermondsey Street. Fantastic restaurant, London. Fantastic restaurant. Very much recommend. The tortilla in particular is my favorite thing.

[Ed Gamble]

Very, very good. Yeah. We had a nice meal.

[James Acaster]

Okay.

[Aheer Shah]

And it's not. It's not a dessert, but if you order it, it will come last. They do fried goats cheese with honey on it.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

Okay. Are you all right with that? I think you might think I am all right with that because I think I tried some of that and it is very sweet. Sweet and delicious.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And I would say does work as a dessert.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So I feel okay about that.

[Ed Gamble]

For me, as a cheese board as well, I think I'm the perfect.

[Aheer Shah]

Somehow I thought we needed this is bringing people together.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because that's such a good choice.

[Aheer Shah]

I'm really taking centrism to a whole new level.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. And that honey's so good as well. Like proper, nice honey.

[Aheer Shah]

It's amazing. And because, like, at the beginning, well, one of the things that you have, if you're getting any sort of meal that's just like little bits. Right. Then you're like, oh, well, I've had all of these things, but I'm not particularly full.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Right.

[Aheer Shah]

And you feel. And then this goat's cheese is put in front of you. And if it's, say it's just two of you there and you have half of it each, and then all of a sudden you go from, well, I could have had, like, four more things. Things to. If anyone is to suggest that I eat in the next 24 hours, I'm going to explode.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a definitive end to the meal. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And you're just eating that with a spoon. You're not dipping anything in it. There's nothing. You're just eating that like a yogurt.

[Aheer Shah]

I mean, it's got this, like. And it's. I can't really describe the texture. I wish I was like, depends what

[Ed Gamble]

sort of goats cheese it is, I guess.

[Aheer Shah]

Well, there's, like. There's a softness to. I would say, like the May, but. But then because it's fried, like the. Almost, the outer edges become crispy as a result. So you've got this real softness and warmth with the real crispiness and the sweetness of the honey. And it's really. Yeah, it's really remarkable.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, man. I want it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. It's hard to be angry about it because I know that it's delicious. I know that I would love it. I mean, personally, I'd like it as a bridge from the main course to the dessert.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

And have a dessert after this. That would be my favorite way of doing this. But it is so good that I can't. I can't go, oh, I've got to get angry because it's cheese for the dessert because, like, there's honey and honey's

[Ed Gamble]

like, the sweetest thing on the planet.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. It's the original sweet thing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Shout out bees and read your menu back to you now. See how you feel about it. You would like sparkling water. You would like pop up 50, 50 raw and roasted over a fire. Start a pani puri from Recti Pani purpose curry main course, veggie thali side dish, Pizza Hut cheesy garlic bread drink gin martini from the. From jukes at the top of the meal. Thick mango lassie with piano belly with his spoons later on. Also, I've missed out so many details here. You've got the band playing in the room. You got the specific plates. You got the advert playing. You've got Charlie Sloth fried goat's cheese with honey from Host A.

[Ed Gamble]

Delicious.

[James Acaster]

That sounds great. That's a really delicious meal, I think. Is there any particular bit in that makes you feel.

[Aheer Shah]

What I feel especially happy about with this is that with the possible exception of the presence of Charlie Sloth, I think I could make all of this happen.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Charlie Sloth would do it.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah. Just be like. Email him. Just being like Charlie. There's only one thing standing between me and my dream.

[James Acaster]

The keyboard.

[Aheer Shah]

I'll even make the custom button and sound effect.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

When. So all of that is there. What are you most annoyed if the Monkey comes.

[James Acaster]

I know we haven't heard the last of the monkey.

[Ed Gamble]

What are you most annoyed if the monkey takes.

[Aheer Shah]

Yeah, No, I would like. Given that the monkey caused so many problems at the beginning of a meal in 1955, I would like in the present day for at the end and everyone's plates and glasses and everything to be cleared away by the monkey and says, by the way, this monkey is still alive. This monkey is wedding.

[Ed Gamble]

I like to imagine the monkey is really old man.

[Aheer Shah]

Very wizzy. He's had time to reflect and. Yeah, so that monkey at the end and somehow he's moved from Dakor in Gujarat to London in the intervening time. But yeah, he. He jumps in through the open window at the end of the mill and tidies everything away.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah.

[James Acaster]

I'm imagining that he's got like Chippendales, like a collar and a bow tie.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But he's really old, so he's got tidy little reading glasses.

[Aheer Shah]

No, he's got a little medal that says Northern Ireland washing up jacket because he's been robbing you.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, I'm happy that monkey comes back to help.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I'm very happy the monkey came back to help. Yeah, good on it.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you very much for coming to the dream restaurant.

[Aheer Shah]

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there we are, James. A wonderful episode with our sh.

[James Acaster]

Forgot that our is a. A vegetarian. So therefore was never going to choose burnt ends.

[Ed Gamble]

Wasn't going to choose burnt ends. No.

[James Acaster]

So we didn't have to care him out. That was nice.

[Ed Gamble]

He could have said, oh, I love. There's like these aubergine burnt ends. What would we have said to that?

[James Acaster]

Oh, well, that would have been. We would have had to kick him out vegetable style. We said burnt ends. We didn't say beef burnt ends.

[Ed Gamble]

No, we didn't. We said burnt ends.

[James Acaster]

So. Yeah, but it didn't happen.

[Ed Gamble]

The poppadoms might have been burnt on the end. If you're doing them over a fire. We should have kicked them out.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, we're harsh. Delicious menu. I'd like to. To eat pretty much all of that, I think.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. So really good. I mean, it's wrong that the main thing I've taken away from that is I really want to eat some pizza. Garlic bread with cheese, isn't it?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that is pretty wrong. But I think the main thing you've taken away from it is the monkey.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah, the monkey.

[James Acaster]

You love the monkey. Yeah, Yeah. I liked what you did the monkey impression. He did the kind of.

[Ed Gamble]

Have you seen chimp crazy yet?

[James Acaster]

No. What's that, man?

[Ed Gamble]

It's a document. It's a documentary series. It's from the makes of Tiger King. It's about a lady who's obsessed with monkeys. Monkeys?

[James Acaster]

Oh, yeah. Sounds good.

[Ed Gamble]

It's brilliant.

[James Acaster]

Oh, it's documentary about the zodiac killer. The other day is great. Yeah, yeah, really good. Definitely Know who Did It Ends is

[Ed Gamble]

also available to stream on Netflix. Now, there is no excuse for you to not watch this show.

[James Acaster]

Zero excuse.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. Well, thank you very much. I'm starving now.

[James Acaster]

I'm absolutely famished.

[Ed Gamble]

Goodbye.

[James Acaster]

Bye.

[Ed Gamble]

Hey.

[James Acaster]

I'm Alison Spittle.

[Aheer Shah]

And I'm Fern Brady.

[James Acaster]

And you might remember us both from our episodes of Off Menu.

[Aheer Shah]

I think in my episode, I got

[James Acaster]

very angry when I ordered toast in a restaurant and was presented with hot

[Aheer Shah]

bread and then told that that was

[James Acaster]

the nature of sourdough, that it simply doesn't toast as a bread. And I said that I take it

[Ed Gamble]

in the hand and the mouth like communion.

[James Acaster]

Did you? I did. That kind of brings us on to the topic of our new podcast, Ignore that Feeling, a show by two ex

[Aheer Shah]

Catholic girls who have never learned to

[James Acaster]

acknowledge a single emotion, ever. And the podcast is out every Tuesday, starting Tuesday, the 10th of February. So please listen and subscribe.