Phil Wang (Tasting Menu)

Summary

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster – "Phil Wang: Tasting Menu" (May 13, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Off Menu features the return of comedian Phil Wang to the "dream restaurant" for a special “Tasting Menu” edition. Instead of selecting his own courses, Phil is presented with the dream meal of legendary food critic Jay Rayner and gives his reactions, preferences, and trademark comic takes on each dish. It’s a lively and warm episode, full of culinary nostalgia and personal revelation, marked by the playful, quick-witted banter the show is known for.

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Main Theme

The primary concept is to have Phil Wang, a former guest and fan favorite, experience another guest’s “dream menu.” This new Off Menu format is an opportunity for returning conversations, deeper insights, and plenty of tangents—many about food, friendship, and Phil’s quirky worldview.

James: "We're going to present him the tasting menu of J. Rayner...as a tasting menu and get their thoughts on it and whether they'd like it." (05:33)

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. The Tasting Menu Format & Pairing Phil with Jay Rayner

• This is Off Menu's second-ever Tasting Menu, letting past guests try a previous guest’s selection.

• Phil is delighted to be presented Jay Rayner's menu, considering Rayner to be the ideal food critic: "He very adroitly balances himself between high taste and no pretension." (16:18)

• The interplay of expectation vs. reality is highlighted as Phil expected to suffer a “bread-heavy” menu.

  Phil: “I was thinking…they’re going to pelt me with bread…” (15:06)

2. Cultural Attitudes Toward Bread, Value, and Buffet Strategy

• Phil remains "not really a bread guy," preferring to maximize "protein value" at buffets, a mentality Ed admits sharing.

• Discussion on buffet tactics, focusing on maximizing expensive proteins and avoiding cheap, filling starches.

  Phil: "You want your prawns, you want lobster, crab...high value, not very filling. That's the Japanese way." (20:20)
  Ed: "Turns out I'm an Asian guy at a buffet...So is my wife." (17:59)

• Witty banter about “wearing national hats” at an international buffet leads to a comedic riff on identity and cultural mixing.

  [The "hat segment": 24:48–27:50]

3. Jay Rayner's Menu: Courses and Phil's Reactions

Water & Poppadoms

• Sparkling water and poppadoms, which Phil is happy about—relieved to avoid bread.

• Phil muses about meal coherence but admits he'll accept poppadoms even if the menu is not Indian.

  Phil: "I've never had [poppadoms] with a non Indian meal, so this is potentially incoherent start to a meal..." (24:09)

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STARTER: Oysters from Rooney Fish, Castleford Lock, Northern Ireland (28:32)

• Phil is an oyster enthusiast and credits Jay Rayner’s book for shaping his oyster-eating technique (chew thoroughly!).

• Shares anecdotes of learning to appreciate oysters (and the culture around them), including a segment about oyster farming and eating traditions.

• Surreal digression about animal pairings in food—Phil delights in "eating two animals that would never have met" (36:07).

  Phil: "That's my favorite part of eating, is when you eat two animals that would never have met." (36:07)

  Ed: "You’re pouring a tree on a pig" (maple syrup on bacon) (36:44)

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MAIN: Spare Ribs from Louise, Harrow (45:30)

• Phil loves ribs and relishes the hands-on eating ritual.

• Comedic deep-dive into the term "spare ribs" and urban food myths—including a discussion of the "calamari-is-pig-anus" urban legend.

• Jokes about mixing species in dishes (squid and pig)—tying back to Phil’s love of culinary mismatches.

  Phil: "I love ribs. I love all the sauces that come with the ribs. The barbecue, the Szechuan and any others..." (50:50) Phil: "I love pulling meat off a bone. It makes me feel like God." (51:06)

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SIDE: Jay Rayner's Buttery Cabbage (58:31)

• One of Phil's favorites; he has cooked Rayner’s recipe at home many times.

• Celebrates the humble cabbage’s importance in world cuisine and laments its under-appreciation in the UK.

  Phil: "I do his buttery cabbage recipe from his book... It's fantastic. I've made it... It's really good, man. It goes with so much. I love cabbage." (59:03)

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DRINK: Vodka & Lime (67:36)

• Phil, now a self-professed wine enthusiast, is surprised by the vodka and lime but is agreeable, likening it to a gimlet.

• The hosts and Phil riff on Phil’s “baby of the group” status while wine tasting—he sips slowly, and is teased by friends (and a restaurant owner).

  Ed (on Phil): "Phil is very slow when he drinks...he always has more left." Phil: "He patted me on the shoulder and said, come back when you've grown up." (71:07)

• Segment about the "wine gang" and Phil’s habit of planning Christmas wine pairings, usually to minimal family interest (79:01–81:15).

  Phil: “It’s astonishing how little people care about this.” (80:34)

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DESSERT: Chocolate Éclair (82:24)

• Phil and Ed both dislike choux pastry and find éclairs insubstantial.

• Jay Rayner’s emotional attachment to the éclair is recounted—a treat his father used to buy only for himself, sparking Jay’s lifelong desire.

• Phil posits that food which is only good at one place isn’t really good.

  Phil: “If there's one place in the world where the food is nice, then it is not good." (82:52) Phil: "I don't dig eclairs as a dessert. I think it's too insubstantial, really…dessert is there to fill you up..." (84:08)

• Phil voices praise for British desserts—banoffee pie, sticky toffee pudding, bread and butter pudding—for their ability to “defeat” you (84:50).

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4. Memorable Quips & Running Jokes

• “Pouring a tree on a pig” (putting maple syrup on bacon) becomes the episode’s standout food metaphor (36:44).
• Repeated refrain: "Makes you feel like God"—whether eating ribs or clearing chicken bones.
• Phil's struggles with not being able to improv “even when fake money's involved” in response to a £200.12 bill (92:41).
• “Most cows have seen the sea”…quickly debunked by the hosts (58:11).
• Phil’s quest for maximum value at buffets and the imagined identity-shifting hat changes.
• Banter around “calamari as pig anus”—a hilarious rabbit hole about food urban legends and Italian food morphology (46:58–49:14).

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5. Personal Stories & Character Moments

• Phil’s childhood in Borneo and his "One Life, Live It" Nike vest; being laughed at at school for his fashion choices (10:12).
• Gift exchange: Phil gives James and Ed bottles of Sabasco, a unique Bornean chili sauce (12:10).
• Reflections on making and losing friends, due to moving as a child (40:01–40:24).
• Phil’s competitive side: Stories of celebrity Mastermind and Pointless, complete with tales of obsessive revision and wine gang origins (71:36–75:38).

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Key Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Phil on food critics:
  "He very adroitly balances himself between the domains of high taste and no pretension. He's got good taste. But he doesn't have much time for pretension. I think that makes the ideal food critic." (16:18)
• On the bacon and maple syrup combo:
  "You're pouring a tree on a pig. If you tried to tell this pig when it was alive, I want to kill you. I'm going to pour a tree on you. It feels so good." (36:44)
• Phil on why he loves ribs:
  "I love pulling meat off a bone. It makes me feel like God." (51:06)
• About doing Mastermind:
  "It's so fun, man. It was so fun, just nailing those questions." (74:46)
• Phil's attitude to wine tastings at Christmas:
  "It's astonishing how little people care about this." (80:34)
• Phil on dessert:
  "I don't dig eclairs as a dessert. I think it's too insubstantial, really…dessert is there to fill you up if the rest of the meal hasn't done so." (84:08)
• On making friends:
  "People say, oh, making new friends in your 30s is hard. I find making new friends is easy. Keeping friends, that's hard." (39:55)
• James (to Phil):
  "We hope you enjoyed your tasting menu." (91:50)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Introduction of Concept / Guest: 04:41–08:10
• Phil Receives Jay Rayner’s Menu: 15:47–16:03
• Papadoms & Sparkling Water: 23:15–24:49
• Oysters Starter Discussion: 28:32–33:37
• Ribs Main Course and "spare ribs" banter: 45:30–53:20
• Buttery Cabbage Side: 58:31–61:19
• Vodka & Lime and Wine Chat: 67:36–81:15
• Éclair Dessert, British Pudding Praise: 82:24–85:01
• Reflections and Outro: 89:00–94:40

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Overall Tone

• The episode is filled with playful teasing, food geekery, and a strong sense of camaraderie—a mix of sharp wit and genuine affection for food and each other.
• Phil Wang’s humor shines both in observational (and sometimes surreal) riffs as well as personal anecdotes.
• The hosts’ chemistry and joy in seeing Phil again creates a welcoming, warm, and relaxed listening environment.

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Conclusion

Phil Wang’s Tasting Menu appearance is a showcase of the Off Menu podcast format at its best: It delivers food talk that’s both highbrow and silly, puzzling and revealing, full of cultural commentary and classic comic digression. Phil proves himself not just a great guest but a real food thinker, while Ed and James delight in pushing him into delicious, strange, and thought-provoking tangents. Whether you’re in it for the menu critique, comedic detours, or wine geekery, this episode is a feast.

Transcript

[James Acaster]

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[Sponsor Voice]

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[Phil Wang]

no hiding in the back row.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm gonna ask that man for directions.

[Phil Wang]

Hi there. We're trying to get to the comedy club.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Phil Wang]

Nah, I'm just kidding.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Ed Gamble]

Howdy, folks. This episode of Off Menu is brought to you by Boar's Head, the Friar's turkey breast.

[James Acaster]

Imagine a backyard tradition, okay? A sun drenched afternoon, a massive vat of bubbling, and a man named Big Dave wearing goggles.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a lot of effort for a bird.

[James Acaster]

It's a lot of effort for a lunch, isn't it? Well, what if I told you that Boar's Head has brought that exact backyard tradition right to the deli counter?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I'd say, James, you finally lost it. And I think you lost it a while ago. But this is beyond the pale.

[James Acaster]

Boar's Head brings to the deli the taste of deep fried turkey. It's all the seasoning and that golden fried glory of the Friar's turkey breast. But without Big Dave having to set up a perimeter in your garden.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, man, that sounds genuinely incredible.

[James Acaster]

Only from Boar's Head, Ed, it's basically craftsmanship you can eat. Speaking of which, you lot listening need to get down to your local deli counter and experience the difference Boar's Head makes. The Friar's Turkey breast in stores now. It's delicious. It's golden. It's the taste of deep fried boar's head.

[Ed Gamble]

Committed to craft since 1905. Welcome to the off menu tasting menu.

[James Acaster]

La dee Da.

[Ed Gamble]

A new concept from the off menu industries.

[James Acaster]

Our minds are an endless well of ideas.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, this is our second one in six years. This is basically our way of getting in some great guests that we've had in the past. Fan favorites. We always worried we Put too solid a line under guests and said, you've done it once. You're not coming back in.

[James Acaster]

So many podcasts.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, third idea. Redemption dinner party.

[James Acaster]

We did a redemption dinner party. So you. So, so just so you know, we've had three ideas. Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

In six years.

[James Acaster]

And one of them was during COVID Just doing it on streaming. The redemption dinner Party.

[Ed Gamble]

Then we did a sort of life.

[James Acaster]

We kind of did it live. Yes. But now this is the third idea.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Is that we get a. A menu, a dream menu from one of the guests that we've had on before and we present it to a different guest who we've had on before.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

As a tasting menu and get their

[Ed Gamble]

thoughts on it and whether they'd like it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And you know, you know us. It'll spin off into some wacky chats.

[James Acaster]

We probably won't stay on topic. We go all over the place in crazy ways. We're on drugs.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Bad ones. Well, our guest this week in the tasting menu restaurant, the dream restaurant. Dream restaurant is the wonderful Phil Wang. Phil Wang. You all know Phil Wang. No need. Do we even need to introduce Phil Wang as a concept to people?

[James Acaster]

No. Everyone knows he's a fantastic comedian. He's an actor as well.

[Ed Gamble]

He's been done some great acting and

[James Acaster]

stuff since we had him on the podcast, which was the first. First series.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

He's been in Wonka.

[Ed Gamble]

Wonka.

[James Acaster]

He did a dance in Wonka. Yeah, that's. That.

[Ed Gamble]

That.

[James Acaster]

That's like, obviously I would, you know, that's my. That's my guy.

[Ed Gamble]

3 body problem.

[Phil Wang]

What's wrong in that?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I haven't watched it yet. He's in it very. You know, he's got one scene in it, but it's a very good scene.

[James Acaster]

I'd love to see that. It's been. He's worked on. Worked with Amy Schumer and sketches and

[Ed Gamble]

look, the guy's doing. Well, what can I say? But we've managed to get him back into the dream restaurant for a tasting menu.

[James Acaster]

Yes. So we're going to present him the tasting menu of J. Rayner.

[Ed Gamble]

Jay Rayner. Notorious and brilliant food critic Jay Rayner.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Who also came on very early in the life of the podcast.

[James Acaster]

He did. We interviewed him in a room that I don't think we've recorded in before, since it was like some.

[Ed Gamble]

We went to him place.

[James Acaster]

We went to him and maybe, you know, was it.

[Ed Gamble]

Is it publishers? Yeah, I think it was his publisher's offices.

[James Acaster]

He had a book coming out.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And look, we're thinking, like, who do we pair with film? Like, whose meal should we give?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And we started thinking, like, comedians that are friends with Phil and like, we can throw their meals at him and he can like, yeah, have fun picking them apart or get annoyed. Oh, no, I've been given this.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But actually we're like, he's a sophisticated guy.

[Ed Gamble]

He is Phil.

[James Acaster]

You know, we're gonna get more out of him. We'll learn more about Phil Wang by presenting him with a food critics, maybe.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, absolutely.

[James Acaster]

So, like, I think we've made the right decision here.

[Ed Gamble]

I believe so. I mean, I think we should just get stuck into it. No, there's no secret ingredients on this.

[James Acaster]

No, we're not going to kick him out. It was hairy crackling when we had Jay Rayner on, but it's not, you know, if Wang says, by the way,

[Ed Gamble]

could I sprinkle some hairy crackling on that?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, fine, fine.

[Ed Gamble]

Maybe if he does do that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that'd be so good. We should kick him out. Yeah. Phil is also on tour with his new show. Uh oh, and you can go to philang.co.uk for tickets.

[Ed Gamble]

I saw some stuff from it recently. It's brilliant. You're going to love it. He's amazing.

[James Acaster]

Uh oh.

[Ed Gamble]

But this is the off menu tasting menu of Phil Wang. Welcome back, Phil Wang, to the dream restaurant.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, my days are so nice to be back. It's been six years.

[Ed Gamble]

That's mad.

[James Acaster]

Has it? Actually, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Well, where did that voice come from?

[James Acaster]

I can't remember if. Because we write. This is the second.

[Ed Gamble]

Put an echo on this.

[James Acaster]

This is the second taste. What? I'm still in the lamp.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Hello, Phil.

[Phil Wang]

Hello.

[James Acaster]

Welcome back. How you doing, buddy?

[Phil Wang]

Thought I recognize that. Yeah, it's good, man. Good to see you, James. I was just saying, Ned. Oof. My heel just kicked. The lowering mechanism on this chair actually made the sound of the gen. Phil's

[James Acaster]

gone back into the lamp. We swapped places.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, that'd be a cheap trick on a genie, wouldn't it? Yeah. Rub him to get him out the lamp and then sneak in there when he's not looking in there.

[James Acaster]

Bad luck.

[Phil Wang]

Like a hermit crab just stealing a shell. Yeah. Last time I was here, there was no office, there was no cameras, there was no mics. We were just shouting from a roof and wow. This is. Yeah. I mean, this is amazing.

[Ed Gamble]

It's pretty fancy. Look. Look how far young Benito has come.

[Phil Wang]

Incredible. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

He's a man now. He's a man.

[Phil Wang]

He's built An Empire. Tony Soprano of podcasts.

[James Acaster]

That was the first series I think you did.

[Phil Wang]

Maybe even like episode like 16 or 12 or something earlier. 13.

[Ed Gamble]

Episode 13. Unlucky for some. Lucky for us.

[James Acaster]

Lucky for us because we got Phil Wang.

[Phil Wang]

Well, lucky in Chinese numbers.

[Ed Gamble]

Is it?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. One and three is like life, basically, because three sounds like life, whereas four sounds like death. So four is the.

[Ed Gamble]

Four is the bad.

[Phil Wang]

Four is a bad.

[Ed Gamble]

So one and three together. So lucky.

[Phil Wang]

Double one. One life.

[Ed Gamble]

One life.

[James Acaster]

One life. Do you. Do you subscribe to that?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, I think it probably is just one life.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

When I was a very round 10 year old boy, I had bought a black Nike vest that I wore all the time because I thought it made me look tough. And I wore it to non uniform day at my school in Borneo once. And I'm a massive guy, you know, guy boy. And I had one. I took it out as an opportunity to look really cool for non uniform day and planned this out before.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And I had on my left hand a fingerless leather glove. I had the small sunglasses from the Matrix. I had shorts because it's hot. Yeah. T shirt. And then this Nike sort of fleece vest. Fleece, Yeah. I remember now. It was a fleece vest and on the back it said, one life, live it.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yes.

[Phil Wang]

I was so excited about debuting my true self in school. The one life living.

[Ed Gamble]

The one life living.

[Phil Wang]

So one life is something I've always lived by.

[James Acaster]

Did it go well? Do you remember the reception for the.

[Phil Wang]

I arrived at school and the first kid that saw me had to collapse to his knees from laughing so much. He just thrust his finger out at me and collapsed to his knees. Oh my God.

[Ed Gamble]

Poor little Phil.

[James Acaster]

He remembers that still.

[Phil Wang]

He's still laughing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, he's still laughing. He's still on his knees at the school. Grows up just sweeping up random and stuff.

[James Acaster]

Gets into watching Taskmaster as an adult. Yeah. Episode one, season Series seven. He's on his knees again.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, he's just recovering. He's finally stopping and laughing and he's

[Ed Gamble]

just got out of hospital.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. This guy. They could have worn it if I got that show.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, speaking of Borneo and One life, James, it was your birthday recently.

[James Acaster]

It was.

[Phil Wang]

I brought you a late gift.

[James Acaster]

Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

[Phil Wang]

Look, a little bag.

[James Acaster]

Pop a little bag.

[Phil Wang]

Thank you for a couple of bottles.

[Ed Gamble]

And look, the gold paper coming out the top looks like a genie exploding out the lamp.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, of course.

[James Acaster]

Thank you for that. So far.

[Phil Wang]

My girlfriend's touch.

[James Acaster]

Have a look here. Oh, there's some Sabasco.

[Ed Gamble]

Sabasco.

[Phil Wang]

It's a hot sauce. Yeah, Chili sauce from Borneo. Where I'm from, my home state is called Sabah and there's a chili there that only grows in Borneo called, I think the Kunak chili. And it's a taste of my childhood. And they started bottling it, mass, mass producing it, and they called it Sebasco.

[Ed Gamble]

That's cool.

[Phil Wang]

And then recently they had to change because obviously.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like Sara Pasco.

[Phil Wang]

Big Pasco. Caught wind of it.

[Ed Gamble]

She's so litigious. We know that.

[James Acaster]

Oh, I love this.

[Phil Wang]

And I brought you a bottle as well. There's no bow because it'.

[Ed Gamble]

No, no, fair enough.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I got the bow.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you so much.

[Phil Wang]

I'm just gonna try it. It's. It's very unique for a chili sauce.

[Ed Gamble]

I'll try some right now.

[Phil Wang]

Fruity.

[Ed Gamble]

How spicy is it? Are you poking?

[Phil Wang]

It's pretty spicy. It's pretty spicy, yeah. James, the yellow bottle is like a sweet version.

[James Acaster]

Oh, you love sweet stuff because you know me.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, of course. It's the ice cream of chili sauces.

[James Acaster]

Well, I'll try the same one that Ed's trying now.

[Ed Gamble]

We've been punked before by Lad Bible,

[James Acaster]

so they were punk by them.

[Phil Wang]

I don't think this is that bad. It's very fragrant, very floral.

[James Acaster]

For you. Is there a spoon for me?

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah, yeah, I put it there for you.

[James Acaster]

Oh, thank you. Sorry, it was under my mic arm. I couldn't see it.

[Ed Gamble]

You definitely got a kick to it. But there's still loads of flavour in it.

[Phil Wang]

Would you say it's unique? Yeah, I would say it's unique. That's a Borneo chile.

[Ed Gamble]

Smoky and fruity.

[James Acaster]

I like that a lot. I'd say more than a kick.

[Phil Wang]

No, I've had Bibles. I'm such a lad. I've been.

[James Acaster]

Wang Bible.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

No, I'm so sorry about the Wang Bible.

[Ed Gamble]

The Wang Bible. Well, thank you. That's so nice. You.

[James Acaster]

That's really nice.

[Phil Wang]

Any, like an Asian dish? A little stir fry with some rice, whatever. Anything with rice. Put a little on the side and just little dips, little dabs.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm putting that bad boy on eggs.

[James Acaster]

That'd be good on eggs. That spreads across the tongue at quite a nice pace.

[Ed Gamble]

Now, we should probably tell you what this new format is. Yeah, we've got new format.

[James Acaster]

It's not us eating hot sauce.

[Ed Gamble]

No, it's low. It is nice to have an excuse just to get friends back in and Fan favourites.

[James Acaster]

That's you. You're both mate.

[Phil Wang]

Which one am I? Oh, nice.

[Ed Gamble]

You're both.

[Phil Wang]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

You're the twofer. And this is the off menu, tasting menu.

[Phil Wang]

That's so good.

[Ed Gamble]

Where we take a previous guest's dream meal. That's not you.

[Phil Wang]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

And this is what you're getting in the dream restaurant today.

[Phil Wang]

Great. I have no choice. This is the omikase.

[Ed Gamble]

This is the omakase.

[James Acaster]

And you can just be honest about how you feel about it. And you know, you don't have to. You can just be honest about how you feel about the menu because we're bringing it out here. It's a tasting menu.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

Great. Well, I'm very open minded.

[James Acaster]

Who do you think we might have chosen for you? What guest?

[Phil Wang]

I was thinking because you know what I said, I guess the most controversial thing I said on my episode was that I'm not really a bread guy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

I don't love bread. And so I thought they're going to pelt me with bread. They're gonna, this is gonna be such a bready menu. And then I thought, who do I know that likes bread? And I thought, Fearne, Fern. Fearne loves a loaf.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[Phil Wang]

Fern loves a loaf. And I thought maybe you'd get Fearne's menu up for me.

[Ed Gamble]

You were trying to guess who it was based on the idea, the preconception that we would want you to have a horrible time.

[James Acaster]

Yes. We're naughty boys. Yeah. We're not gonna lad Bible ya.

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. I'm sorry my lad brain was going over time.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. You can reveal. It's that piece of paper nearest you there that we've put that says. Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, oh, I see. Okay. Gotcha.

[Ed Gamble]

So this is whose menu you'll be eating this evening, sir.

[Phil Wang]

I'm reading this now.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

Okay. Tonight I'll be eating the menu of Jay Raynor.

[Ed Gamble]

Jay Raynor. Legendary food critic Jay Raynor.

[Phil Wang]

I think I've done very well here, to be honest.

[Ed Gamble]

I think you might have done.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Not everyone would say that. Some people might be like, oh, fucking food criticism.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But we were thinking Wang would probably be quite excited to get a Jay Rayner meal.

[Phil Wang]

I'm a big fan of Jay Rayner. I got Rayner Mania.

[James Acaster]

Have you ever.

[Phil Wang]

I like, I've read one of his books. I, I think his reviews are very good. I think he, I think he very adroitly balances himself between the domains of high taste and, and no pretension. He's got good taste. But he doesn't have much time for pretension. I think that makes the ideal food critic.

[Ed Gamble]

There you go. We've actually done really well here.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah, Big time.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I can't wait. Although he does love bread.

[Ed Gamble]

He does love bread.

[Phil Wang]

So. So it's.

[James Acaster]

I look fear coming into this.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. Already I'm trying to. Have they. How have they led Bible, Me of the boys, lad Bible.

[Ed Gamble]

In the intervening six years between the last time you're in the dream restaurant. We've shared a lot of meals together.

[Phil Wang]

Yes, we have.

[Ed Gamble]

And I. I think there must have been bread at those. I don't remember you sort of knocking a basket out of some poor waiter's hand, swerving it.

[Phil Wang]

But those were very nice breads. Yes, Those are very, very high quality breads. Those. A lot of times they were baked on site. I mean, and when they come, when they turn up warm and there's like, there's. But there's butter. I'm talking about, like, you're gonna butt on bread. But when it, like, turns out warm and there's love in their eyes, that's. That's. That's beautif. I'm not like, I don't. I don't default to bread all the time, and I don't try not to eat bread at the start of a meal because it just kind of takes up value, valuable space. I have very much the mind of, like, an Asian guy at a buffet is like, you need to be piling on as much value protein onto the plate and bread is taking up.

[Ed Gamble]

Turns out I'm an Asian guy at a buffer.

[James Acaster]

I always say this.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I always say this about you.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm an Asian guy at a buffet. So is my wife. My wife's an Asian guy at a buffet.

[Phil Wang]

Your wife is the biggest Asian guy I've ever met. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

No, we went to Vegas and went to, like, some big buffets. Like the big expensive buffets.

[Phil Wang]

Awesome.

[Ed Gamble]

And our catchphrase when we were going up to the buffet every time, be Asian was be Asian.

[James Acaster]

I'm Asian. That was. The cafe's on their way there.

[Ed Gamble]

Hello. We'd say to everyone, I'm Asian.

[Phil Wang]

And they'd say, right this way.

[James Acaster]

Okay. That's your catchphrase, I suppose.

[Phil Wang]

It's a casino. Everyone's Asian. What are you talking about?

[Ed Gamble]

We would shout, say near the tops of our voices, quite drunk. High quality proteins.

[James Acaster]

High quality proteins.

[Ed Gamble]

High quality proteins. It's like battle cry.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. High value, high value, high value. That's an important thing.

[Ed Gamble]

But does quality Equal value.

[Phil Wang]

Not always.

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[James Acaster]

No.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. Not. Not always. Sometimes things are expensive. Worth a lot. Not really worth that much. I mean, Lobster was fed to prisoners in Maine. There was a protest in main prisons because you can't keep feeding us these bugs. Oh, wow. Then it became fancy food, and then it became expensive.

[Ed Gamble]

And they don't get it in prison anymore, I guess.

[Phil Wang]

No. Now they're protesting. Let us see some goddamn lobster.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

He said the lobster. We take it back. We take it back.

[Phil Wang]

It's all about perception.

[James Acaster]

Did they give the prisoners, like, the bib and the little lobster fork crunching, pliers thing. They got the butter.

[Phil Wang]

A cartoon lobster on the bib.

[James Acaster]

Can you stop feeding us these bugs?

[Ed Gamble]

But the cartoon lobster on the bib is in handcuffs.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Around the claws, looking sad. Yeah, they caught me. Do you think they fed the prisoners lobsters that had done crimes? Yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

They pinch things.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Come on.

[Phil Wang]

It was there. It's not good, but it's there.

[James Acaster]

It was right there. Something good.

[Ed Gamble]

That's all you can hope for as a comedian.

[Phil Wang]

That just works on a technical level.

[Ed Gamble]

It's quick and it's there.

[Phil Wang]

It's quick and it's there.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that picture.

[Phil Wang]

That was actually the slogan for lobster.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

On the shores of Maine. It was quick in its day.

[Ed Gamble]

It's quick in its day. What is your. So what is your buffet technique? So first plate at a buffet. Say this is like a fancy buffet.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, okay. Oh, like at a Singaporean hotel.

[Ed Gamble]

Sure.

[Phil Wang]

I would. Well, avoid the starches. I do find it hard avoiding rice noodles, but seafood. So you want. You want your prawns, you want lobster, crab, Go the Japanese area. High value, not very filling. Yes, that's the Japanese way.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Sashimi. Yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Makis, tuna, miso soup. Not filling. Not miso soup's not particularly valuable, but. And then you get into your red meats. That's very high value, very expensive. So a bit of steak, a bit of a burger, then the silver. And then you start on the silverware. Because there's the real value. You gotta start filling up on the silverware. We're talking teaspoons, we're talking little forks. We're talking the little. The little snail forks, those tiny little snails. You can pack in fucking loads of those into a pocket.

[James Acaster]

Then you're in prison and you're being fed lobster. At least you got the cutlery for it.

[Phil Wang]

I don't go to. I don't go to buffets. Not much anymore, are there? Fancy buffets Yeah, I feel like not

[Ed Gamble]

as fancy as that. I think the fanciest ones I've been to, like in Vegas or it's like Vegas Dubai. I was in Dubai once and went to a couple.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Although I. I have very fond memories of going to the. The all you can eat buffet in. Kept him. When I was growing up, I always used to look forward to. I've shouted out Lee Gardens on the podcast before, but I'd be excited every single time. We're going to Lee, guys.

[Phil Wang]

A Chinese buffet.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Lee can go either way.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was one of the guys.

[Ed Gamble]

Sounds like a guy from Kettering who runs a gardening company.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Shout out to him as well. Yeah. I don't want him to think I've forgotten about it. Lee Gardens. You keep on doing your thing, brother. We all appreciate your work. I'm talking about the all you could eat buffet. Right? Yeah, yeah. Delicious. And I just get. Because nowhere else did that near us. Yeah. Like going there for like, you know, it's like one of our birthdays. Oh. And just like going crazy.

[Ed Gamble]

But that's like Chinese buffets. All you can eat Chinese buffets are where people really up with the starches, I think.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

They're going straight in with a pile of noodles and rice. That's it.

[Phil Wang]

That's it.

[Ed Gamble]

And that's it. They're not going back.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, that's a smart thing. The Chinese make an event out of the starches.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And people think, oh, I'm getting valley here, you know. No, no, no, no.

[Ed Gamble]

If you pair like a tennis. All you can eat and then you've eaten less than. Way less than a 10 is worth and you can't fit any more in.

[Phil Wang]

You got to go to the proteins. Avoid the chicken balls. Is mostly batter. Yeah, mostly batter. That's how they're getting you there. Yeah, you need to be able to see the meat. Yeah, you need to see the meat. Crab, crab legs, crab claws, all that kind of thing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

You have to see them all.

[Phil Wang]

Silverware.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Chopsticks. Every chopstick you can grab.

[James Acaster]

We'll do water and pop bombs or bread together.

[Phil Wang]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

He's quite brief on them.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah.

[James Acaster]

We're talking sparkling water and poppadoms.

[Phil Wang]

Interesting.

[James Acaster]

Now you gotta be happy with that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You're all scared about bread. I mean, look, please take this. Well, I've never had a guest get in their head so much about the bread before we've even started. You were panicking. So.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You kept saying, like, no, Bread on this. Is there, guys? I was like, he's such scared there's going to be bread here. And we know there's papadoms.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. No, I'm happy about the poppadoms again. You're not filling up too much at all there.

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, you can throw on some relishes. Did he pick out any relishes?

[James Acaster]

Well, I'm guessing you're having whatever you want on those poppadoms, Phil.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, great. Nutella. Yeah, I like that onion salad that comes with that.

[Ed Gamble]

So do I. Yeah. I love it. I never used to like it. I'd be like, why am I eating that raw onion? Are you kidding me?

[Phil Wang]

I started off as a mango chutney guy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And then you realize you're eating dessert.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

You need to start with some salad. A little onion, something zesty, a little lime. I guess the only problem with poppadoms is I've never had it with a non Indian meal, so this is potentially incoherent start to a meal. Unless the rest is Indian.

[Ed Gamble]

Does coherence worry you meal wise?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, it does. Yeah. I think if a meal isn't sort of thematically or culturally tied together, I feel a bit odd. All rules are out the window at a buffet? Yeah, of course at a buffet. I'll have sushi next to a lasagna, and I'll be like, I'm getting my money's worth here. Take the rice out of the sushi.

[James Acaster]

Of course.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Don't be loading up on that.

[James Acaster]

But if you change what hat you're wearing for each dish.

[Phil Wang]

A little hat.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Like a hat that represents the country.

[Ed Gamble]

Because we all know you're wearing a hat when you go into the buffet. But will you change that hat?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, I have to bring.

[James Acaster]

Just to make you feel like thematically you're still kind of like you're connected to everything in some way.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So it's not that random.

[Ed Gamble]

And maybe what you're listening on your headphones, you change that as well.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, I have a playlist.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Buffet. It says Buffy Buffet 25 because it's the new year now.

[Ed Gamble]

So you're tucking into a lasagne.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

What hat are you wearing?

[Phil Wang]

What do they have? It's not. No, beret is French. There's like an Italian one, isn't there? What's the guy wearing on those pizza boxes you get in London?

[Ed Gamble]

Chef's hat.

[Phil Wang]

Chef. Oh, the white. The white kind of wear a big,

[Ed Gamble]

poofy white chef's hat.

[Phil Wang]

The gondola guys have a little Beret. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But then if you go with the beret for Italy, Phil, think it through, because later on there's gonna be. There's gonna be a French. A French dish.

[Phil Wang]

Well, lucky, I've already got the hat.

[James Acaster]

What are you doing? You can't just go back.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a smaller beret, right?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, I just need to squish it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Oh, you're gonna use the same beret. Yeah, just squish the Italian one.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, scrunch it up.

[James Acaster]

Well, there are certain ways of wearing berets in different regions that are like. That means you're from there.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, no.

[James Acaster]

And you wear it differently. It means you're from a different place. I got shown it when I was in San Sebastian with Joe Lyset for travel. Man, try some berets on. The guy was telling us, like, if you wear it like this, you're from San Sebastian. If you wear it from this, you're from Bilbao. And he was like doing it all differently. So it must be. The gondola guys must have their own way.

[Ed Gamble]

But that's in Italy. So you're talking about Spain now.

[James Acaster]

Yes, I talked about Spain just now.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. So that.

[Phil Wang]

So you have berets too.

[Ed Gamble]

You need a different beret for Spain.

[Phil Wang]

Well, I've got a lot of cuisines covered by one hat.

[James Acaster]

As long as you know where to put the hat each time you've got to move it.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Otherwise someone will come up to you and go, what are you doing?

[Ed Gamble]

Chinese food. Are you gonna wear the hat or are you just gonna be like, oh, Chinese food.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, I can have either that sort of tight cap.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Then I'm just pulling the beret down a bit and I'm just tugging it.

[Ed Gamble]

Is that gonna look like. I don't know why you refuse to take more than one hat to the buffet?

[Phil Wang]

Well, I'm just trying to think how it just feels that unwieldy when we're putting all these hats.

[James Acaster]

I think if you've got one and you keep just moving it around, it's gonna feel like some like Edinburgh one man show thing. Jeremy. Where they excuse as little props as possible and everyone goes, oh, that's amazing what they did just with that beret.

[Phil Wang]

It completely transformed mains.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Or you're gonna look like you've got nets.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. People don't think you got knits at the buffet.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, no, that's not good. Okay, well, the beret covers a lot other. Yeah. Other hats. The sombrero, that's going to take up a Lot of space. I could probably fit in some of the hats. Into the sombrero.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

The barrier could go into the sombrero.

[Ed Gamble]

And there's often a string on the sombrero, isn't there? So you can carry that in. So it's like a hat bag. It's a hat bag. It's a hat.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. And then when on the way out. That's why I put all the cutlery. Yeah, perfect.

[Ed Gamble]

In the brim. You put this sombrero on, just line all the forks and knives around this umbrella and then go, adios.

[James Acaster]

We'd be walking out so carefully.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Really slowly. One step at a time.

[Ed Gamble]

Sorry, I'm very.

[James Acaster]

Turning your neck really slowly to look at the provider as you go out.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Thank you, my good man.

[Phil Wang]

Gently jangling.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Just putting your hand up. Just wearing that fingerless glove.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

See you later.

[Phil Wang]

Everyone in the restaurant having to use their hands. What happened to Oliver?

[James Acaster]

The hell happened to the cutlery? Where's that jangly man going?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, hopefully this menu will be coherent for you.

[Phil Wang]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

From Papadom's.

[Phil Wang]

Look, I trust. I trust Big J.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

Your starter. This is Jay Rainer's starter. It's coming to your table now. We're putting it in front of you.

[Phil Wang]

Oysters, Marvelous.

[James Acaster]

From Rooney Fish, Castleford Lock. Ni. What's ni?

[Ed Gamble]

Northern Ireland. I'd imagine. James.

[Phil Wang]

Not for eating. Not for eating? Is that what it means,

[Ed Gamble]

not for eating?

[James Acaster]

Oh, take them away. Take them away. Again, bad luck.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, very funny from Phil there, but I don't want to get off track that you didn't know what NI stands for.

[James Acaster]

I thought it was like an American, like, state or something.

[Phil Wang]

Michigan.

[James Acaster]

Michigan, yeah. Where she's from, Michigan. Everyone speaks in a loud, squawky voice. Yeah, all the time.

[Ed Gamble]

Detroit, Michigan.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. A blue state.

[Ed Gamble]

I imagine Castleford Lock is in Northern Ireland, so.

[James Acaster]

Okay, yeah, apologies. Apologies to everyone in Northern Ireland. I've exposed myself there. Ignorant.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, well, these sound delicious, these Northern Irish. I love an oyster. And actually, Jay Raynor informed my oyster eating technique.

[James Acaster]

Oh, wow.

[Phil Wang]

It's in his book that he says there's all sorts of nonsense about not chewing an oyster or two chews, three chews. He says it's food. Chew it. Chew, chew, chew until you've had enough chewing in his wall. This is what he does. He peels away the nonsense. Old Jay. Yeah, he peels away the nonsense. Yeah. So I think about Jerry and every time I slurp down a Northern Irish.

[Ed Gamble]

And what do you do you now like choo choo? Do you choo choo choo choo choo.

[Phil Wang]

I choo choo I choo choo choo choom. Maybe four if it's a real good one.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Sometimes you get a bit scared. Even I get scared.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Even fans of voices get a bit scared sometimes. You're like, no, actually, maybe I'm not into this. Actually. Every single time there's a little moment I'm like, oh, what am I? And then I swallow and I go, that was great.

[Ed Gamble]

So good, so good.

[Phil Wang]

And I take another. I'm like, fuck, what am I doing? Oh yeah, that's really good.

[Ed Gamble]

They are scary. I love oysters, but every time I have them I think, I've never had a bad one that's done bad, bad business to me.

[Phil Wang]

No, that's right. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

One day I'm sure it'll happen.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So when could it be? I'm spinning the roulette wheel every time I have oysters.

[Phil Wang]

The oyster farmers. Fishers. Fisher oyster men. They know from. They eat raw oysters straight off the boat when they're fishing and they slurp it and they know straight away if it's a bad one.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh really?

[Phil Wang]

After they swallow it and they. They swallow a bit of saltwater and they throw it up over the side

[James Acaster]

and they keep going to instantly puke.

[Phil Wang]

Instantly puke it out? Yeah, they can just tell from the taste. There's bad one. And they went to oyster. The oyster farm in Whitstable filmed it for a little travel show for a video game. And the guy.

[Ed Gamble]

Hold on, you might have to explain that, Phil.

[James Acaster]

A travel show for a video game? What are you talking about?

[Ed Gamble]

An oyster farm.

[James Acaster]

An oyster farm. It sounds like you were filming a Marvel film and then you've had to suddenly make up what you were doing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

What are you talking about?

[Phil Wang]

It's for a project called Metal Guy. It was for Rome Total War, which is a video game, a real time strategy game I've always been a big fan of. And they were remastering the original Total War and to coincide with it they wanted to do like a funny travel around travel documentary about the Romans. But it was Covid so you couldn't go to Rome. So we did Roman Britain.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

And for one episode is about Roman British food. And they ate loads of oysters. Did they? Yeah. Roman sites, archaeological sites are full of oyster shells and their walls are full of oyster shells because they reused and put in there.

[Ed Gamble]

That's very cement.

[Phil Wang]

And so we went down to the Whistlebull Oyster Company which is the oldest company in Company house in the UK, the WhistleShow Oyster Company is the oldest company in Companies House that survived.

[James Acaster]

I can't wait to tell that to John Robbins. He'll know that he loves Companies House so much. I can't wait to tell him that I know a detail of. I go, yeah. He loves trivia. Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Oh yeah.

[James Acaster]

So I can't wait to say to him, do you know what the oldest company incoming House is? And he'll go, no, what is it? And then at that point I will have forgotten.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

It would be far enough away from this.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

That I would have forgotten. The only bit I would have retained is that I want to tell John and then I will realize that I don't know and I'll say Phil Wang. That will be it.

[Ed Gamble]

We've had oysters a lot together.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, sorry. Quite recently they grow and keep growing as well. Sorry. This has become oyster.

[Ed Gamble]

They keep going.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. On the beach where the oyster farm is, there was an oyster that just dropped off one of the racks years ago. And it was like the size of this table. It was massive.

[James Acaster]

No one picked it up. It just fell off the racks and then went, ah, leave it there.

[Ed Gamble]

It see what happens.

[James Acaster]

I can't be bothered. We'll get it tomorrow. Every day. We'll get it tomorrow eventually. How big is that? Try and lift it. That. It's impossible.

[Ed Gamble]

I bet that oyster is. You couldn't eat that though. No, I bet it's disgusting.

[Phil Wang]

It'd be horrible.

[James Acaster]

It eat you to chew or not to chew.

[Phil Wang]

And it goes.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. What am I doing?

[Ed Gamble]

Piece it back up again.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Bit of salt water. It's not a good one, Phil. Just like naked just slides across the floor.

[Phil Wang]

The guy who showed us around the oyster, Rex, was very experienced oyster fisherman and he was trying to get me to shuck them, which I couldn't do because these oysters are so sharp. And my soft, soft city hands were just breaking against the crust of these oysters. And he said, ah, you're a. You're a city. You're a city man. Luke pointed on my hands and he went, you know what you call those here? I thought, oh, God. And he goes, lady hands.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Phil Wang]

Well, that's not making the edit.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, lady hands. Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

That'll teach us to go to Kent.

[James Acaster]

We call this here. You could have just said, just take your breath, mate. It's not gonna. Whatever you're about to say. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You're not gonna say nice soft hands.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. All those lovely hands and you're very welcome here.

[Ed Gamble]

Lady Hands.

[James Acaster]

Lady hands looks at the camera.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I've shucked oyster at home before. A couple of times.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So hard.

[Phil Wang]

So hard you have to go in the opposite way to the opposite end that you think. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You go in, like, the joint bit and then get it in there, twist to unlock it, then get the knife in and try and cut all the muscle off the top. All while trying to not get shell into the shell.

[James Acaster]

Forget it.

[Ed Gamble]

And then. Yeah, it's. It's a nightmare.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It makes me really angry when I've done it.

[James Acaster]

I bet it does.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah. Really stressed out.

[James Acaster]

Not worth it.

[Phil Wang]

And then the product at the end of his, like, lasts 0.5 seconds.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And I've probably it up. I've accidentally chopped it up into mints in the middle of the shell because I'm digging the knife around in there.

[James Acaster]

I'd do that. I'd chop it all up. I'll get shell all in it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And I'll be on and for like. Like two seconds in and it being hard, I'd think to myself, it's not even like marshmallows in here.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It's not even doing this for. For a marshmallow.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm doing it for something that I'm gonna get halfway through and go, yeah,

[James Acaster]

I'm gonna freak out while I'm eating it. If this was a lovely, gooey marshmallow, this would be worth it.

[Ed Gamble]

When we went to Rick Stein's restaurant in Padstow.

[Phil Wang]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

My starter. Yeah, my starter was four oysters, but it came with some spicy sausages.

[James Acaster]

Oh, wow.

[Phil Wang]

Such a nice touch. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And I didn't know this was a thing, but apparently it's quite a sort of French thing to do. You neck an oyster, have that, you know, what the fuck? And then take a bite of the spicy sausage straight afterwards. Or take a bite with an oyster in your mouth. And it's perfect. It's so good.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Phil Wang]

Little sausage chaser.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Sausage chaser in your mouth, haven't you? Oh, that's good.

[Phil Wang]

That's my favorite part of eating, is when you eat two animals that would never have met. Isn't the best.

[Ed Gamble]

Is that the most wang thing you've ever said?

[James Acaster]

Loads of people. We have Roisin Connity on the podcast once, and she said she loves watching YouTube videos of animals that wouldn't normally hang out with each other. And, you know, who make friends in captivity and how sweet it is. I love eating them both. And they never would have met.

[Phil Wang]

They wouldn't have if you told an oyster about a pig would have lost its. You know what you're talking about.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I love that. You feel like God. You eat an oyster and you eat a bit of pig. They would never have meticulously.

[Ed Gamble]

You're in control of the whole world.

[Phil Wang]

Or having maple syrup on bacon. You're pouring a tree on a pig. You're pouring a tree on a pig. If you tried to tell this pig when it was alive, I want to kill you. I'm going to pour a tree on you. It feels so good. It feels amazing.

[James Acaster]

That's what you like about it? Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

That is one of those sentences that's going to change people's lives every time they put maple syrup on bake and nothing. I'm pouring a tree on a pig.

[James Acaster]

In a tree on a pig. Look at me.

[Phil Wang]

Damn right. Damn right. Every time you salt something, crushing rocks onto, I don't know, a snail.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

It's also. It just. It just never at all.

[Ed Gamble]

Snails.

[Phil Wang]

Probably met a rock salt lives in a rock.

[James Acaster]

Poor guy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, poor guy.

[James Acaster]

Would you ever say like, you know, for breakfast, would you say like to your partner or whoever, like, want to go and pour a tree on a pig?

[Ed Gamble]

That sounds. Say that to your partner. Sounds like you're up for some fun.

[James Acaster]

I. You wouldn't want to do that. So. I'm married man here wouldn't want to give us.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, but it's a. It's an awful way of suggesting it, isn't it? Wouldn't go bore a tree on a pig. You got to think, what's the tree? And who's the pig?

[Phil Wang]

Which tree?

[James Acaster]

Which pig?

[Phil Wang]

Very important pictures.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, true.

[Ed Gamble]

You sound like a socialite. Like one of those old school socialites who has dinner parties and invites people from different walks of life.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But in this case, you're eating the guests.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, that's right. I'm doing a placing map, a seating map for animals. For dead animals to meet each other.

[Ed Gamble]

You guys are really gonna get on.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. That's why I love the surfing Turtle. Cow, you have to meet lobster. I think you two would get on

[James Acaster]

very well if the cow was in prison. It made a lot of sense. But it's one bad cow.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. You two are gonna have a riot together.

[James Acaster]

Is that a prison joke? Is that a prison pun?

[Ed Gamble]

No, it wasn't supposed to be, actually. I was just enjoying. Enjoying being one of those annoying hosts who has dinner parties and sits people next to each other who don't know each other. And you're like Fucking hell, mate. That's not why I'm here.

[Phil Wang]

When you have people over for dinner, do you. Do you give them a seating plan? Do you tell them where to sit or just let them sit with people

[Ed Gamble]

who they know probably haven't had anyone over for dinner for about three years?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't do that. No. But also, like, the worst is obviously weddings, where people go. We thought we'd just mix up all the friendship groups. Like, why the. How long do you think this wedding is? One fucking day.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

We're not. I don't need to get in those. I wanted to sit with my fucking mates and slag the wedding off together.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And do. And, like, all, you know, have a sweepstake on the speeches. Do fun shit.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And now you've sat next to someone and now I've got to be on my best behavior.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I want to sit at the table and everyone else there is a comedian and their partner.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And all I want to do is talk about comedy while all of our partners look increasingly annoyed.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Surely you must hate that for, you know, like, sitting next to strangers at weddings.

[Phil Wang]

I. I like being sat next to someone. I. I don't know. Wow. I like meeting new people. In my 30s, I've. People say, oh, making new friends in your 30s is hard. I find making new friends is easy. Keeping friends, that's hard.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

For me, that's hard. That's really hard.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I make friends, I lose them. That's how I worked.

[James Acaster]

Why do you think you lose them? What happens?

[Phil Wang]

I think it's because growing up, I moved around, so I, you know, I moved a lot of schools, a lot. And I moved like, I went to boarding school in Borneo and then. And then moved here, and then I was only at school here for two years and went to university. So in my mind, I think my mind goes, oh, you have friends for two years.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And then you.

[Ed Gamble]

And then you leave.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, that was just my conditioning, I think.

[James Acaster]

So they just are like, where's Phil? So that they don't know. They don't know what's happened.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

No, no.

[Ed Gamble]

They're messaging you, going, I thought we were supposed to meet up. And you're going, check the calendar, mate.

[James Acaster]

It's two years. I told you.

[Phil Wang]

Happy New Year, Goodbye forever. That's what I said.

[James Acaster]

I remember reading something once about a guy who had a thing, you know, a very rigid thing of, like, how long his relationships lasted, like, romantic. So if he got in a relationship, it was, well, let's say 10 years. And that was how long it was gonna. So every year, every relationship was the same amount of time to the point where he would say to partners, like, this is what it is with me. No matter how it's going, after 10 years, we're done.

[Phil Wang]

Wow.

[James Acaster]

And I think at the beginning a lot of them would think like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it would get to 10 years on the day you go, goodbye.

[Phil Wang]

Wow.

[James Acaster]

And they'll be like, are you fucking kidding me?

[Ed Gamble]

That's crazy.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

How did this guy start? 10 years is a long time. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Probably. I probably shouldn't have choice. Ten years.

[Phil Wang]

All right. Right, right.

[James Acaster]

Maybe for a year. Okay.

[Phil Wang]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

All right.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's obviously not 10 years.

[Phil Wang]

Sorry, baby. This is just something I do. I did it once. I'm not in my 50s.

[James Acaster]

Every single person must fit. Think I'm gonna change his mind, Right?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

We are so right for each other. This is a good relationship. They're approaching the three year mark, whatever it is, and they're going, there's no way. We are. This is the best relationship I've ever been in. It is great.

[Ed Gamble]

Did he just decide that or did his first relationship end after three years? Maybe the second one is a coincidence. And he was like, I guess that's how it has to be.

[James Acaster]

Maybe. Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And then it just became my conditioning.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

It's like you with your. You go, well, I'm off to uni now.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

You're 45.

[Ed Gamble]

Guess I'm moving.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Moving again. Puts your little bindle over your shoulder.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Go to the next town with all your hats in it, all your hats in there. Your cutlery that you've stolen.

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[James Acaster]

Your main course. Phil.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

That Jay Rayner has chose for you some spare ribs from Louise and Harrow.

[Phil Wang]

Oh wow. I don't know Louise and Harrow. What's so special about these spare ribs?

[James Acaster]

I seem to remember Jay Rayner saying that he likes the ritual of of like eating with something with your hands.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Fun Getting stuck in, especially once I've been.

[Phil Wang]

You've got no choice.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, sure.

[Phil Wang]

Because I've.

[James Acaster]

I've got the silver, you've got the silverware.

[Phil Wang]

My hat. So, yeah, I love ribs. One I never understood what makes a rib a spare rib. What's a spare? Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Especially since those are the ribs you see the most.

[Phil Wang]

That's right.

[Ed Gamble]

So they're not left over.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're. They're the full rib.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

If those are spare ribs. What? The spares. Like what? The spares of the spares. Like, like the spare ribs. What? Yeah. Do we know?

[Ed Gamble]

No. I guess maybe traditionally it's not just the ribs left over when it was. When a pig was being butchered, maybe. Maybe they were the cheapest bits that no one wanted. So they were the spare ribs. They were going spare and then they were like, became the most desired bit and they're just still called spare ribs.

[Phil Wang]

Why wouldn't you call them just ribs, though? It's not like you butcher a pig and go, well, that's a spare anus. No one wanted. No one wanted the anus. Just get spare anus.

[James Acaster]

It does make it more appeal.

[Ed Gamble]

Anus is going begging.

[James Acaster]

This anus is going begging.

[Phil Wang]

Do you remember the urban myth a few years back where people were saying that calamari was deep fried pig anus?

[James Acaster]

No.

[Phil Wang]

This was a thing I read.

[James Acaster]

It's my.

[Phil Wang]

I read a thing and it said, be careful. But calamari, be careful.

[Ed Gamble]

It starts with be careful.

[James Acaster]

Hi, guys. Be careful.

[Phil Wang]

All the calamari out there, some of it might be pig anus, some of it might be.

[James Acaster]

Not all of it.

[Phil Wang]

Not all of it. Some of it just to sort of, you know, beef up portions.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, but you would love it. You'd be like a squid and a pig would never meet. Shoveling it in, yum, yum, yum.

[Phil Wang]

Well, I thought, surely pig's anus is more expensive than a squid. There's the many rings of squid in a squid. There's only one anus on a pig, not anyone.

[James Acaster]

You think that's what that makes it more expensive? You think if someone's just butchered a pig, they've got all the, like, all the choice cuts that people usually eat.

[Phil Wang]

So many chops, only one anus.

[James Acaster]

They're like, I've only got one anus here, so you better pony up some pretty big bucks for this.

[Phil Wang]

Start the bidding at £50 for the anus. You can take the chops. I don't give a shit about the chops. The thing's full of chops.

[James Acaster]

It's quite difficult for these chefs who are just like, I need a whole bowl of what looks like calamari. How am I going to get enough pig anuses for this?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Well, maybe just some of them will be pigs.

[Ed Gamble]

I love that it's only some of them. Like, why just. Why not just give one less calamari? I don't think anyone's gonna notice. No, they're going, oh, no. They're expecting seven calamari out of this. I can't start a whole new squid.

[Phil Wang]

Well, they've printed the menu. The menu says seven calamari.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. As it always does.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Seven exact calamaris. Don't look at one of them too hard.

[Phil Wang]

Is one calamari a calamari. That makes me feel sick. Because he knows, like, with Italian food, like, the I is always the plural. Yeah, yeah. So there's one calamari or calamaro.

[James Acaster]

Maybe it's a calamari. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because I guess ravioli. Raviolo, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Is it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Raviolo is like a big ravioli. Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Is that true?

[Phil Wang]

I think so.

[Ed Gamble]

Raviolo is definitely true. I've not heard spaghetto before.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I thought spaghetti was thinking SpaghettiOs. Yeah. I think you'll think of spaghettios, Phil. Like a tin of spaghetti hoops.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Which. Which, by the way, are sparrow anuses.

[James Acaster]

They are little birdie anuses that they put in.

[Phil Wang]

It's just cheaper.

[Ed Gamble]

Not all of them.

[Phil Wang]

Not all of them. Not all of us. That would be. That would be nuts. That would be beyond the pale. But some of them are.

[Ed Gamble]

I feel like I'd notice if there was a pig anus in my calamari.

[Phil Wang]

I would have thought so. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Surely it would look different to the rest of them.

[Ed Gamble]

None of us are saying we know what pig anuses look like.

[James Acaster]

No, I. I'm not saying that.

[Ed Gamble]

No. But calamari are like. You can see through the middle of it. Right?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Surely the pig anus acts as an anus to be quite puckered.

[Phil Wang]

Right, right. But sort of liberated from the sphincter. No, the sphincter's the inside bit. Liberated from the anal muscles. Does it loosen?

[Ed Gamble]

Maybe that. Maybe when it's heated.

[Phil Wang]

Ah, it expands.

[Ed Gamble]

It expands.

[James Acaster]

It could expand.

[Ed Gamble]

Maybe they give the. Let the pig sniff some poppers before they

[James Acaster]

sniff these. Get it.

[Phil Wang]

Even with a popper budget, it's still cheaper than the squid.

[James Acaster]

And then pig gets suspicious at that point, surely.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Why you want me to sniff these pops? Yeah. You're not going to Pour a tree on me, are you? I'll sniff it. But stay away from my anus.

[Phil Wang]

Ribs. Yeah, I, I like. I, I like a rib.

[Ed Gamble]

When someone says ribs, I assume they're going to be spare ribs.

[Phil Wang]

Well, that's always what they call the Chinese takeaway ribs. It's always called spare ribs. Yeah, but then a rack of ribs. Yeah, it's never called a rack of spare ribs. That's just the rack of ribs.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, some places it is, I think, but that. But they are the spare ribs. They're the long ones, right? Oh, compared to baby back. Baby back. Baby back ribs.

[Phil Wang]

And what are baby back ribs?

[Ed Gamble]

The smaller ones.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, so the spare ones are the long ones at the end?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Okay, well, that might be it then.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I love ribs. I love all the sauces that come with the ribs. The barbecue, the Szechuan and any others.

[James Acaster]

Phil making that noise of his mouth.

[Ed Gamble]

I can't remember what Jade Rayner wanted, but I guess they're more in the sort of American style of barbecue. Barbecue sauce. Smothered ribs.

[Phil Wang]

I love pulling meat off a bone. It makes me feel like God.

[James Acaster]

That's the second time you said that. I just like the second time he said it makes you feel like God.

[Phil Wang]

That makes me feel like God. And this can only end one way.

[Ed Gamble]

Sort of medieval evil. Right. Pulling meat off a bone and eating it with your hands. You want to throw the bone away. Like God.

[Phil Wang]

So sick. I want to feel like the corrupt king at the end of Return of the King, Lord of the Rings, just eating. He bites the tomato and it goes. And like tearing meat off like a leg. So, so sick. We don't, we don't pull enough meat off bone in this country. In, in Malaysia, everything is on the bone. I didn't really come. Come across like, like breath, like just chicken breasts on its own until I moved to the uk. That is the part that people don't want in Asia.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Because it's not so flavorful and it doesn't, you know, as it gets dry. But welcome to England. My father is a Chinese. As a Chinese guy. And they all have the skill of just shoving a piece of animal in their mouth and they go. And the mouth just moves around.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And then, and then he'll. You'll lean over and you'll spread out perfect shining little bones.

[Ed Gamble]

Wow.

[Phil Wang]

It's awesome.

[Ed Gamble]

Like God, like.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, exactly like God.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

You know how like on the TV show, sometimes a sex. A sexy lady will flirt with a man by putting a Cherry stem in her mouth and. And then she puts it out.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Pulls it out and it's tied in a knot. I eat a little bird.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And I, I. And I say, madam, and I want a little napkin.

[Ed Gamble]

Madam spit a bacon into a napkin.

[James Acaster]

Just the bacon. It's the whole skeleton, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

The whole skeleton.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

All of it.

[Phil Wang]

But.

[James Acaster]

Oh, and then you say, phil Wang, pleased to meet you.

[Phil Wang]

It spells out, phil Wang, pleased to meet you.

[Ed Gamble]

The bones, sometimes if like chickens, like char grilled or anything like that. The small bones, if they've been like char grilled and they're like a bit. Bit carbonated. I'm crunching those down.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

This guy, I learned something new about him every episode.

[Ed Gamble]

I love it. I love, like, being able to crack through a crunchy bone cartilage.

[Phil Wang]

Makes you feel like when you do

[Ed Gamble]

that, makes me feel like a God.

[Phil Wang]

Ah. I think I know this feeling.

[James Acaster]

If you were a God, Phil.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

What would be the first thing you say if you woke up if you were Jim Carrey and Bruce Almighty? What. What would you do?

[Ed Gamble]

Sorry, Phil. Just put a small bird in his mouth.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, he's just, he's just showing me rather than telling me what he would do. This is what I would do.

[Phil Wang]

You. I'm. I. I'm pretty. I'm pretty satisfied with how the world is. Is that a responsible thing to say?

[Ed Gamble]

Outstanding answer.

[James Acaster]

I think the world is great in 2025.

[Ed Gamble]

Didn't even need to talk about the state of the world. Could have just got come up with something mad that you do if you're a God. But you went with, I'm pretty satisfied with the state of the world.

[James Acaster]

I think the world is good. I can't think of anything that people are complaining about at the moment. All seems pretty good to me.

[Phil Wang]

I don't know, man. It's just, it's too big and ask. I don't. I wouldn't know where to, where to start. Every, you know, you want to say, well, I'd get rid of all war and injustice, but it'll arise. We're built to fight and to be unfair to one another. It's how we're built.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Every time we try and affect. Every time we try and affect something from the top down, that changes this nature of ours. It ends.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, but being a God is not top down. I think how.

[Phil Wang]

Well, there's nothing more top down than being a God.

[Ed Gamble]

No. Because you can literally control everything that happens. It's not like you need to worry about the consequences that sounds like a lot of work.

[Phil Wang]

I'm checking in every day to see how it's going to be.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You're God, man.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I just wanted to put tree on a pig and now I've got to control every conflict in the world.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I, I think I wouldn't want to be like a monotheistic Abrahamic God. I. Because that's too much of a broad scope. You got to. I want to be one of the pantheon gods.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Like an Egyptian or a Greek or. They had some fucking good times.

[Ed Gamble]

A God of something.

[Phil Wang]

A God of something.

[James Acaster]

What would you be the God of?

[Phil Wang]

I'd be the God of when you need to buy something with cash and you have just enough change that rounds that is like the thing is 13 pound, 15 pence.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And you have a tenner and a five pound note. Yeah. But you also have 15 pounds.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

So you give 10 pounds, £5.15 and you give. Get two pounds. Yeah. Back.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I once did that at a supermarket in London and the, the checkout lady very confusingly gave me £2 back after. Even though the price had some pence at the end of it. And she honestly said to me, how have you done that? So I'd be the God of that?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Like you're Darren Brown or something. She's looking for hidden cameras.

[James Acaster]

I mean, I've got to assume you're getting bullied at God school if that's what you're the God of.

[Ed Gamble]

The rest of them, we know what the God's wearing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Ed Gamble]

Everyone else wearing robes and stuff, you're turning up wearing your fleece.

[James Acaster]

One life, live it. Which is absolutely redundant if you're a God.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. One life is forever though.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I'm living it.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I'm loving it. Fleece on your glove. Okay. Well, you know, I think you'll be a good God.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Thanks, man.

[James Acaster]

People. So will people pray to you to make sure that that happens for them?

[Phil Wang]

Well, these gods, these pantheon gods, you know, when you dig into it, some of them are really specific what their gods are. And that's a pretty good one. That's a pretty cushy one. You'd have to do very much work. And you get to be a God. Yeah, they pray for me. They'd offer up loose change at the altar.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And if they're God.

[Ed Gamble]

But you don't want that as a God though. They'd have to offer up.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Proper coins and notes, right?

[Phil Wang]

No, but I guess. No, I want loose change. So that I can keep having this.

[Ed Gamble]

The feeling, the experience.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But isn't the experience only good because you. You don't receive any loose change back and get rid of the loose change initially.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah, you're right, actually. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You're gonna have to put some more work in if you want to be the God of this.

[Phil Wang]

Sorry. God damn it. Being a God is hard. This is what I was saying earlier.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You just want to feel like a God.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. By putting a tree on a pig or eating cheese on a fish.

[Ed Gamble]

That's a good one.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. Putting cheese on a fish. You're putting a cow onto a fish.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. That's nice.

[Phil Wang]

They had no idea about each other.

[James Acaster]

No one's ever milked a cow over a. No one's ever been milking a cow in it. And just at the point where they squeeze the teat, the bucket gets washed away and a fish was happened to be going past.

[Phil Wang]

Never. And he goes, what's that? Never you mind what that was. You're a cow. You'll find out in the afterlife. Also, their eyes are pointing on the side. I don't think they can actually look down at the water. At most, the cows looked at the. Seen the sea, but the cows never met a fish.

[James Acaster]

Most cows have seen the sea.

[Phil Wang]

I would say. Most cows have seen the sea.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

That's definitely not true.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, some cows have seen the sea.

[James Acaster]

I thought that Phil said most.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

No, no, no. You thought you had me there. You really thought you had me there. When you thought I said, oh, most

[James Acaster]

cows have seen, I thought, I've got him.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah,

[James Acaster]

Your side dish. We're bringing on a side dish now. Yeah, it's buttery cabbage made by Jay Rayner.

[Phil Wang]

This is mad. Cause I do his. I'm starting to sound Jay Rayner obsessed. I do his buttery cabbage recipe from his book.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, this is huge. This is such a coincidence.

[Phil Wang]

It's lots of butter, lots of cabbage, and then just loads of chicken stock and just keep going and going and going.

[Ed Gamble]

That's it. That's what he put on his dream meal. So you've actually had it before?

[Phil Wang]

I make it, yeah. I've made it. I haven't made it in a while, actually, but I gotta get back on that. It's fantastic.

[Ed Gamble]

This is fantastic.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Phil Wang]

It's full of butter and stock.

[James Acaster]

See, we. We just had a feeling. We were like, let's choose Jay Rayner for Phil. We think that'd be good. We think because we're not trying to. We weren't Trying to do what you thought we're gonna do and like punk. Yeah, yeah. We're trying to give you something that. Well, you think he would. He would vibe with this a little bit. We were so on the money. Because you're eating this anyway.

[Phil Wang]

Absolutely. I love it.

[James Acaster]

How often do you make Jay's buttery cabbage?

[Phil Wang]

I haven't for a bit, but I went through a period of, like, having it. Basically every other meal I would make this buttery cabbage. Wow. It's so good, man. It goes with so much. I love cabbage.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Shout out to cabbage. I mean, cabbage is, you know, it's. It's got so many societies through so much across the world, you know.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Europe to Asia. The cabbage has. Has. Has been the foundation of civilization.

[Ed Gamble]

So it's frowned. It's still like. People think badly of cabbage quite a lot.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I think.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

People think it's like lame and farting.

[Ed Gamble]

Farty. Yeah, farty or something gets leveled at it a lot.

[James Acaster]

Charlie Bucket's family have cabbage soup. Delicious in Charlie chocolate.

[Phil Wang]

Not so bad. After all, being a bucket, they got cabbage soup. It's better for you than fucking chocolate.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I mean, any sort of buttered greens. Big, big fan.

[Ed Gamble]

I think this does sound good. I've still not had it. The buttered cabbage. Alajay Reina.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But you literally just cooking the cabbage in stock. Are you cooking it in the stock or.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, you lost a bunch of other stuff to fry it up and then kind of like a risotto, you keep adding.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay. So it's like evaporates.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Amazing. Sounds really good.

[Phil Wang]

It's really nice.

[James Acaster]

So you can just make this. You just got it in your head now you know how to do it easy. You. You've got your own feel. How much to add at each point.

[Phil Wang]

Sometimes some crushed fennel seeds in there is really nice. Lots of pepper, obviously. Yeah, yeah, man. It's the best. It's really good.

[James Acaster]

You must think of Jay Rayner when you're eating oysters and when you're eating cabbage.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, I think about Jay Rayner a lot, actually.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

He's a lucky guy to get to live inside this, to live rent free in this.

[James Acaster]

You know he plays jazz piano as well. Yeah, the piano.

[Ed Gamble]

Have you been to one of his gigs and.

[Phil Wang]

Too busy eating cabbage.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I imagine you're, like, learning his songs to play like.

[Ed Gamble]

J, mate, you could eat a load of cabbage, then go to his gigs, hop on stage and play the butt trumpet.

[James Acaster]

The buttery trumpet.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I was not Expecting Butt Trumpet to come. Place it on my calamari and get going.

[James Acaster]

A super fan. Oh, no. This always happens. Ripping out a solo from your ass. Someone's read my cookbook and now they're here all the time. Jay, I think of you all the time. We saw in the new year. I can't remember if it was New Year's Eve. Ed and I watched Jay Rayner on Pointless.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Win Pointless, to be fair to it.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

With Thomasina Myers.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. Another guest.

[James Acaster]

Another guest from the pod. So, you know, we're rooting for them because we're like.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Invested interest.

[James Acaster]

They've both been on this podcast. We want them to win because then we've won.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Even though.

[Phil Wang]

Ed, have you guys done it? Pointless celebs.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

How'd you do?

[Ed Gamble]

I've done it a couple of times. Both times I did it with Nish.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

From Nichigan from Michigan. First time we crashed out after two rounds. Second time we won.

[Phil Wang]

Nice one. Oh, you won the jackpot.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Ed Gamble]

Won the jackpot. Absolutely. Thrash Peston into middle of next week. Peston's gone. See you later.

[Phil Wang]

Must have felt good.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it was really good. The round that got us through to the final was towns. It was like, pictures of town halls and the name and, like, just some letters missing.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And obviously Minish were all over small places with town halls.

[Phil Wang]

Of course. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

From gigging. I got Altringham because I'd cancelled a gig there the week after. Well, that's Altrinham. Wrote that in an email recently. I know how those letters go. I shall not be coming to Altrincham. And then we lucked out because the final round was actors in Marvel films.

[James Acaster]

Ah.

[Ed Gamble]

Superhero films.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

There was.

[Phil Wang]

Wow. I mean, those two categories are Nish's life.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I was throwing ones out there that Nish was like, yeah, whatever. But they were also pointless. But we got a pointless answer on Michael Gough.

[Phil Wang]

Whoa. Who's Michael Gough?

[Ed Gamble]

Alfred. In the original Batman films. The Michael Keaton Batman films.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Phil Wang]

One of the great Alfreds.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Really good Alfred.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

The first time I did Pointless, did it with. With Sindhu V. Yeah. And we got the jackpot, baby.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Wow. Sindhu said Eritrea and bang, bang, bang, we were champions.

[James Acaster]

What was the category? Places where Phil would.

[Phil Wang]

It was state, American states or African countries with seven letters in the name or more.

[Ed Gamble]

My God.

[Phil Wang]

Jesus. That's a mortal she knocked out. I've never seen someone say Eric train so fast.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It's a lot more Successful.

[Phil Wang]

And then I did it again with Pierre Novelli.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

And we got to the final. We won. But then we were asked to name some Idris Elba movies.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, no.

[Phil Wang]

And I said Thor 2.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And we didn't win.

[Ed Gamble]

Too high.

[Phil Wang]

Too high. Not as high as you think. Thor.

[James Acaster]

A lot of people knew that film. Or he was in it.

[Phil Wang]

He was in it. A lot of people. I think the qualifier. Yeah. The fact of there is a lot of people knew edriselba was in Thor 2. But my thinking was, well, everyone's gonna say Thor.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

But no one's gonna say Thor 2 too.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Dark World.

[Phil Wang]

It turned out people did.

[James Acaster]

A lot of people said it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Sorry, Phil.

[James Acaster]

We all thought you were about to say something there.

[Ed Gamble]

And then you said 100% the most bonito's ever laughed on the podcast.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Bonito absolutely lost it. His head spun round over and over again.

[Ed Gamble]

That's the clip.

[Phil Wang]

This is my life, man. People always think I'm gonna say something, and I'm not all the time.

[James Acaster]

Well, you should stop saying, um, you

[Ed Gamble]

went buy tickets for Phil's next tour.

[James Acaster]

You went. I. You were still looking at the table. You weren't even looking at any of us. It's like, where's Phil gone? He's not even in the room anymore.

[Ed Gamble]

That's how you should open your next show, man.

[Sponsor Voice]

We're lost. If the show starts without us, there's

[Phil Wang]

no hiding in the back row.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm going to ask that man for directions.

[Phil Wang]

Hi there. We're trying to get to the comedy club.

[Sponsor Voice]

Well, you're going to take a left at the old oak tree at this here road.

[Phil Wang]

Nah, I'm just kidding.

[Sponsor Voice]

Let me get my phone out.

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[James Acaster]

Here's a drink coming for you.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yum.

[James Acaster]

It's a vodka and lime.

[Phil Wang]

This is an odd choice. He's knocking back a vodka with. With ribs.

[James Acaster]

Ribs. Buttery cabbage. He's had some oysters and now he's gonna have a vodka and lime.

[Phil Wang]

Vodka and cabbage. Thematically, culturally consistent.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

No problem with that. And the ribs.

[Ed Gamble]

I think you were hoping for some wine, weren't you, Phil?

[Phil Wang]

I was a little bit.

[Ed Gamble]

In the intervening six years, you know,

[Phil Wang]

I was hoping for some wine and

[Ed Gamble]

Phil's a wine boy now.

[James Acaster]

You are such a wine boy that I think it's something that a lot of people know about you. You did choose wine on the podcast, I believe, when you came on off menu. But you were kind of going, I'm just getting into wine and I think wine's nice.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. I took Ed's suggestion of a Riesling.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. So that was where you were.

[Phil Wang]

I'm still open minded.

[James Acaster]

Is there any place I used to. And you'd be like, yeah, what did

[Ed Gamble]

I recommend six years ago? Because I don't think I knew anything about Riesling really.

[Phil Wang]

But you're right.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah. Or just generally Riesling. Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And that's it. Still. It's still the cool white wine.

[Ed Gamble]

It is. Especially for us. We're in the.

[Phil Wang]

We're actually.

[Ed Gamble]

For us, we're a little club.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You two are in a wine club.

[Ed Gamble]

We're a gang. We're a gang of. Just a gang of chaps.

[James Acaster]

Every time Ed goes out on those, it'll be like when we, you know, we've just finished recording an episode and I was like, what are you up to tomorrow? He's like, oh, I'm going. Going away with the. The wine guys. Ollie and Phil and Pierre. And we're just gonna go. Huh?

[Ed Gamble]

I'm Freddie.

[James Acaster]

And Freddie. And we're just going for a wine weekend. I'm like, oh, yeah. Anyway, was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Should be nice. Should be nice. It'd be. Be good to see the guys and just get together.

[Ed Gamble]

I've never said this. This is an awful event.

[James Acaster]

Just get together, have some wines. It should be, you know, it's been. Joe.

[Ed Gamble]

What?

[James Acaster]

It should be a quiet one. You know, I've been out a few times recently. I just, I just fancy a quiet weekend. Pace ourselves. The next day. Send me a selfie of all of you looking like cartoon characters whose eyes are going all over the place. You're all trying to look like upstanding gentlemen and you're absolutely like, y. Your heads are disappearing into your neck. It's all like mouths open, just hanging bright red rep. Mouths half open eyes.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But always like, hold it, hold it up. Your glasses like. And then gathered around some like incredible looking food that hasn't been touched yet. So like, like a base. It just like, like, like a pig's head. Yeah, that's like, that's like shining. They all like, like day one, the

[Ed Gamble]

bottle picks at the end, you take a picture of all the bottles. We've had the lineup. There's a lot. There's always a lot in the lineup. Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

It's so fun, man.

[Ed Gamble]

But yeah.

[James Acaster]

May I say, Phil, you're usually the one who looks the most sober in the podcast.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you. Well, I'll tell you why that is.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, no, you've already mentioned, you've mentioned this.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

On the podcast before. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It's always good to recap it though. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So when you've got a few bottles going around and you're enjoying tasting them and like you might have like four or five glasses in front of you, you.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You know, you're tasting them, but then you're drinking.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And Phil is very slow when he drinks.

[Phil Wang]

I don't think I am.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, we've all finished our glasses and Phil always has more. Like even when we want to open another bottle, some of every wine left. And we were in a restaurant called Otto's and Otto came over and he looked at the situation and he turned to Phil and he said, Ah, you are the baby of the group.

[Phil Wang]

He's German, by the way. Yeah. That wasn't just a bold.

[James Acaster]

I don't even care where he's from. I enjoyed the voice. I get where.

[Phil Wang]

So Phil and the baby.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And then he. And then at the end of the night, he. After everyone had finished their wines and I had a few left over, he patted me on the shoulder and said, come back when you've grown up.

[James Acaster]

Worth telling it again. It was longer this time. Come back when you've grown up with such a horrible thing to say because someone has their leaving at your restaurant

[Ed Gamble]

and we've not been back.

[James Acaster]

Obviously my favorite wine memory with Phil is going to do masterminds together in. In Pelfast.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So I know where that is. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. And in Michigan.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, in Michigan, of course. And I've probably spoken about the podcast before, but I like talking about it because I like that. First of all, my main reason was food related for. For doing Mastermind in Belfast because I wanted some seafood chowder. So that was my main thing. I'd said to the production, could you let me know when there's good seafood chowder for the night before bunching to Phil at the airport. Didn't even know that we were both going to be on it. We're on different episodes. I was like, phil, you got to come out tonight, get some seafood chowder. I'll be revising tonight. I was like, for what? He talked about Mastermind tomorrow.

[Ed Gamble]

I.

[James Acaster]

New Zealand wines is my. Is my specialist subject. I need to revise. I was like, fel, come out for just a second. You gotta eat at some point. That's what I said to him. Okay. Comes out, has a sea, which I'm thinking in my head, he's gonna stay out. We're gonna go to the Crown. Yeah, we're gonna have a pint of Guinness. Like, he's gonna stay up, have the seafood childhood. Like, pup. You're like, no, I'm going back to my room. I was like, come on, Phil. He's like, no, no. And he went. He just went to his room. Revised. I can't fucking believe this shit. I went back to my hotel. I'm just sitting there fucking bored. I can't believe this. 8 o' clock or something.

[Ed Gamble]

When you go to the Crown, I'm

[James Acaster]

going on my own. I wanted to go with Phil Wang. I thought, my buddy's here. This is great.

[Phil Wang]

I was calling a school night, though. I couldn't believe it.

[James Acaster]

Well, that's the thing.

[Phil Wang]

It's Mastermind.

[James Acaster]

The next morning, you were calling it a school night and you would talk about the whole thing in school terms. Because the next morning we have the briefing and there's all the celebs there, including the guy from the pottery throwdown show. Cries all the time. And Michelle Gale, of course. And Michelle Gale was on my episode. And after we'd all been briefed, which is very, very serious, she said, I'm gonna circulate. I'm gonna meet some people. She said to me, I'm gonna go around, I'll be back in a minute. I'm gonna speak to some people I haven't met before. Who on the other episode, she goes away, I talk to someone else. She comes back. She's not as chipper as she was when she left me. She goes, do you know that man? I look over and Philly sat apart from everyone else, just on his own with his. On a seat, but with his legs together because he's balancing a folder on them, like a full, like, lever arch folder, going through these laminated pages one by one, very seriously. And she went, do you know that man? I went, yes, that's Phil Wang. And she went, oh. I said to him, do you want to have a chat?

[Phil Wang]

And he said, no, it's exam day, just tell me.

[James Acaster]

No, it's exam day. Well, he's very serious about this, Michelle. I've known him for a while and he wouldn't go for a pipe with me last night. He had to revise. So. And then he went on and he got all of them right, but one.

[Phil Wang]

No, I got all my specialist subject.

[James Acaster]

All your special subject.

[Ed Gamble]

Right.

[James Acaster]

And then I think you only got one wrong on your. On the. On the other one. Absolutely, like, destroyed it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, of course, because he revised.

[James Acaster]

I've got a photo on my phone of Phil doing a specialist subject that I took in the green room of the. Of the tv. And it's just him looking the happiest I've ever seen anyone on a T. Everyone else in Mastermind just looking scared, panicking. Phil just smiling because he's done. He's done the work.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And he's loving getting them all right.

[Phil Wang]

It was so fun, man. It was so fun, just nailing those questions.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You felt like. What did you feel like?

[Phil Wang]

I guess I felt like a car.

[Ed Gamble]

That's actually how our wine gang came about.

[Phil Wang]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Because you wanted to revise for it and you'd met Freddie.

[James Acaster]

Wow. I didn't know that he works for

[Ed Gamble]

the Wine Society and he suggested a meal.

[Phil Wang]

Well, Because Freddie was the buyer there for New Zealand.

[Ed Gamble]

For New Zealand, yeah.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And he brought you a folder of stuff to.

[Phil Wang]

Notes. I brought his notes to Belfast.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. The very notes that infuriated Michelle Gale.

[Ed Gamble]

Little did Freddie know, one day these notes will piss off Michelle Gale.

[James Acaster]

So when Michelle Gale came up to me, went, do you know that man? Before I looked over, I thought in my head, please be Phil. Do you know that man? It's not that great. Oh, this is Phil Waggs. It'll be great. Yep, There he is.

[Phil Wang]

I was the only one who brought notes to the morning meeting. I couldn't believe it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I was the only one who brought notes to breakfast.

[Ed Gamble]

You couldn't believe it.

[James Acaster]

Guess what? The rest of us couldn't believe it either. Phil. You're not the only one who couldn't believe it. We were like, does this guy know Laugh Celebrity Mastermind?

[Phil Wang]

Meanwhile, James is asking me, do you think they'll let me bring a real ice cream onto set? That was the thing that he was really worrying about. I don't know if we can bring a real ice cream onto set.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Cause you wanted to. Cause you were doing History of ice Cream.

[James Acaster]

I thought it'd be funny to sit down while eating an ice cream.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I thought it'd be really funny, especially. Cause on Mastermind, they zoom in slowly on the guy who's being questioned. Or gas.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

And it'd be so funny if, as it's getting closer to James, an ice cream just comes. Rises from the bottom of the screen like he needs it to understand the question.

[Ed Gamble]

You were terrified, though.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I was terrified.

[Ed Gamble]

The amount of tightness I got from the dressing room being like, why have I said yes to this? I've not revised. Why didn't I do any revision?

[Phil Wang]

You did pretty well, considering you got four of them.

[James Acaster]

I did quite well on it. Yeah. But I was in the dressing room, I was completely like, I should have been more like Phil Wang. Like, I would have lost a lot of friends and I wouldn't have been popular here. But I would not be panicking as much as I'm panicking now, because I've not revised this whatsoever. So, yeah, just to clarify, the vodka lime is just vodka and lime cordial. And it's like a gin gimlet.

[Phil Wang]

I do like. I like a gimlet very much. So I'm open to that. Really cold and in one of those small coupe glasses.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Phil Wang]

Wow. And the level of the liquid is right. Right. Flush with the top of the lip of the glass cocktails like that are

[Ed Gamble]

when it helps to be the baby of the group.

[Phil Wang]

It's small. Just small amount of baby out there.

[Ed Gamble]

Little sips. Little sips. You're one of those people. I look around, we're having a cocktail. Fifteen minutes into the cocktail, I look, and you're still halfway through the cocktail.

[Phil Wang]

Me, I've got both my hands around it. Like when a kid is drinking juice,

[James Acaster]

it's a school night.

[Ed Gamble]

Me, I'm getting that. That's gone. Gone. Martini. Anything in a small. Coop. Two sips. Gone. Really? Yeah, big time.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Now I'm in space.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, he's in space. Around Christmas, Ed was going to space quite a lot. I was getting texts from him pretty much every day. Yeah, because you went somewhere nice, I think, and. And every day you were like, text me. I've just had a hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream in it. And then in a separate text, I'm in space. The next day, I've just had an Irish coffee. Next text, I'm in space. It was so good to the point where it got to be that he was texting me what he'd had and then going, guess where I am. Are you in space again? Houston, we have a problem. Like, you're just busted out, all that stuff.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah, I love. Turns out I love a boozy hot chocolate and an Irish coffee, and I very rarely have Irish coffee, but it's so good.

[Phil Wang]

It isn't. Yeah, it turns out, like, sweet, boozy, chocolatey things are just mad. Isn't it nice?

[James Acaster]

It's really nice.

[Ed Gamble]

But it was cold and, like, there was a fire in the place we were in. It's all about the ambiance, isn't it? Off to spell space.

[Phil Wang]

Did I go to space this Christmas? Yeah, I think so. I had some really nice.

[James Acaster]

Because we're laughing because you've instantly adopted the phrase, I'm in space for meeting something, and it's. But you've just thought about it very seriously of going, did I go to space this Christmas?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I must have. We love people adopting phrases and parroting phrases. Anyway. But especially when you adopted it in a way that it's like you've been saying it all your life.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes,

[Phil Wang]

it makes sense.

[James Acaster]

Instantly became completely normal to you.

[Ed Gamble]

What took you to space this Christmas?

[Phil Wang]

What took me to space this Christmas is I try and do the wine pairings for family Christmas.

[Ed Gamble]

Beautiful.

[Phil Wang]

And before, I always bring, like, a red for the turkey for the main, like, a light red. But this year, I thought, I'm gonna Do Chardonnay all the way.

[Ed Gamble]

Whoa.

[Phil Wang]

So we started with the blanc de blanc champagne, which means only white grapes in the champagne prime, which is primarily, if not all, Chardonnay.

[James Acaster]

I think it is all. I think BrandyWalk hosting that now. Who's hosting that now?

[Ed Gamble]

I think.

[Phil Wang]

Very nice.

[Ed Gamble]

I'll just chip in and say I think blanc de blanc has to be 100.

[Phil Wang]

Chardonnay, I think it is, because the other grapes are petit Meunier, I think, and Penny Noir. And then. And then for mains, I had two Burgundy style Chardonnays, One from New Zealand, from Khmer river, which is meant to be the great Burgundian sort of white wine of the new world. And then to compare that with the classic white Burgundy from Poligny, Montrachet, which was.

[Ed Gamble]

Do your family enjoy this?

[James Acaster]

Because.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, because you are. I've tried things like this with just my wife and my family sometimes.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's not my dad. My dad are doing this. If I tried this shit with anyone, they'd be like, you're the most boring man in the world. Stop ruining Christmas.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. And Phil, just for the record, this was also gonna be my question. I was about to ask it.

[Phil Wang]

It's astonishing. It's astonishing how little people care about this.

[James Acaster]

It reminds me of, like when I used to make mixtapes for people when I was growing up. I still am obsessed with music, but I would be like, I want them to like every single thing and know every single thing. And here's the tape. And then they'd go, thank you. I've never listened to them.

[Phil Wang]

This.

[James Acaster]

And that'd be. And I have to accept that as I get older.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So I admire that You're. You're like.

[Phil Wang]

You want them to know the connections between all the songs and why you put this one after this one and this. That's. That's what.

[Ed Gamble]

So in that situation where you're present, you're telling everyone about the wine.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

How they all relate to each other. We're comparing these two. What are you doing? If it's definitely happening, they're ignoring you and just talking and getting on with their Christmas, do you get angry or do you just accept it's happening?

[Phil Wang]

I just sort of quiet. I just slowly get quieter. I just get quiet. Slowly, Quieter, quieter. And then I just stop talking. And then I pour. Yeah, I pour the wine. But I also do a thing when I'm talking while I'm pouring the wine to people so that there's this implication that if you don't listen to me, you don't get any wine. Yeah, that's the implication. I'm not saying it out loud, but that's the implication. You have to be in a position of power for the brief period where you want people to listen to you. This applies throughout life.

[Ed Gamble]

If they talk to someone else about something else, do you stop pouring?

[Phil Wang]

I just stop pouring. I take their glass and I pour it back into the glass.

[James Acaster]

Get the fuddle out.

[Ed Gamble]

I did that to you once because I know it annoys Charlie. So I will do things like I had two bottles and accidentally, across the period of five years, bought two different bottles of Barolo, which was the same but different vintages, five years apart.

[Phil Wang]

Fascinating.

[Ed Gamble]

And I said, well, fascinating. We'll do a vertical tasting. Let's compare these vintages.

[Phil Wang]

Lucky lady.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. She starts packing her bags.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, it's awkward to be there for.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Finally left. Dessert time.

[Phil Wang]

Yum.

[James Acaster]

And there's a bit of a story behind this, but it's quite simply a chocolate eclair.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah. I don't like choux pastry.

[Ed Gamble]

This is what I said to Jay Raynor and he was not happy about it.

[Phil Wang]

Interesting. Yeah. I find choux pastry, like, even when it's done right, it's kind of dry and papery and weird.

[Ed Gamble]

Totally agree.

[Phil Wang]

I don't think. Dig it.

[Ed Gamble]

Totally agree. Don't like choux pastry. He said, you need to go to Matra Shoe and not there anymore.

[Phil Wang]

I always think, though, when you say someone, I don't like this type of food and they go, well, you got to go to this one place in the world. It's probably not good food. If there's one place in the world where the food is nice, then it is not good.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't like choux pastry. I don't like eclair's.

[James Acaster]

Because you did go. He told you go to make your shoe. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It was better than. Because it was like quite thin choux pastry. So the cream was really nice.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Sweetened cream. But I. I don't like a class when. When they're all the round ones where you buy them from like the supermarket and they've got that cream in them. I hate that.

[Phil Wang]

The patisserol capitis, what they call the profiteroles.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, that's what I meant. And I didn't say the name. But it's the same thing. It's the same thing. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I, I loved the Profiter rolls that we. We sold at the. The second pub that I worked at, the Profiter Rolls there. I was just going into the Walking fridge pretty regularly and popping them in my mouth.

[Phil Wang]

Were they making their own profiteroles?

[James Acaster]

No, they got them in, but they were just full. They were proper. And I would just, like, pop one in while I'm doing something. I'll be like, I gotta go mount back and sweep up the. The walk in fridge. Profiteroles don't come in.

[Phil Wang]

If you hear chewing, that's me cleaning.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

I make a strange, chewy Spam.

[James Acaster]

There we go. I enjoyed that a lot.

[Phil Wang]

I don't. I. I don't dig Claire's as a dessert. I think it's too insubstantial, really. And it's kind of too light and airy. Kind of like airy. And I think you can start something, you start the meal with something cold and airy and light. But to finish a dessert is there to fill you up if the rest of the meal hasn't done so it's there to just fucking, like, beat you, just to knock you out, to, like, fill.

[Ed Gamble]

So that's when you.

[Phil Wang]

Space.

[Ed Gamble]

Don't want to feel like a God is when you get to dessert.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

You don't have to be defeated by the dessert you meant to.

[Ed Gamble]

You want the dessert to be God.

[Phil Wang]

And that's why I love British desserts. I think, like you, Britain gets a lot of flack for its food. The desserts are so nice.

[James Acaster]

What we talking?

[Phil Wang]

Banoffee pie. The goat sticky toffee pudding. You're not hungry. After sticky toffee, you're not hungry at all. Bread and butter pudding.

[Ed Gamble]

Spotted, dude.

[James Acaster]

Dick.

[Phil Wang]

Spotted dick. A spotted dick apple crumble if you're feeling healthy. It's so good and it's so filling. And those are always the desserts I want at the end.

[James Acaster]

Well, his reason for the chocolate eclair was because his dad would bring back a load of stuff from the bakery for the family to eat on a whatever on Saturday. And he would have only one eclair. The dad would buy one eclair, and it was, for instance. So no one. And little Jay Vane would be like, daddy, can I have the eclair? No, that's my eclair. So now it's a thing that he's always coveted.

[Phil Wang]

Well, now that there's a traumatic story behind it, how could I not? Gosh, that's kind of a dark reason to want to Claire.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I guess originally when you told it, it didn't sound dark. I've made it sound.

[Ed Gamble]

I think you did make it sound dark when he told you that. Yeah. I think you found it really funny.

[James Acaster]

Well, I found it funny, but I wasn't like that guy who I guess is your dad, but like, you know, what a. What's he doing? Not getting two eclairs.

[Ed Gamble]

But also that's clearly maybe one of the things that's driven Jay Ray to become a food critic. That he can have whatever he wants whenever he wants it. So if anything, thank you, daddy.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. And you can say, oh my. This is. This is. This is everyone, isn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Anyone you can spoil off, thank your. Thank whatever parent it is for the trauma that's led to you doing this job.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Is a Claire based trauma, though, which is one of the lowest forms of trauma.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. At least for him. It's like I just wasn't allowed in a Claire because my dad would eat one.

[Ed Gamble]

There's still other stuff from the bakery as well.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. He still got some baked goods, but he doesn't care about those anymore. He just wants an eclair so he can. So do you think you can make

[Phil Wang]

your kids do the job you want them to do by giving them the appropriate traumatic experience about it?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I think so.

[Phil Wang]

Like just not letting your kids have paracetamol.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

You've got access to all the parasitimal I want.

[James Acaster]

You can take the back of the computer out and fiddle around there and off their heads, you know.

[Phil Wang]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Right.

[Ed Gamble]

So you can get what you were trying to make someone a. Like a computer scientist.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Oh, no, no, no.

[Ed Gamble]

You fuck the computer up. You go in and the computer up and go. Go on, fix that, fix that.

[James Acaster]

Otherwise you can't. You can't play your video games.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You can't play Roman World or whatever you were.

[Phil Wang]

Roman World promoted Roman World. Yeah. If you played as much Rome Total War as I did, you would laugh so much at the idea of it being called Roman World is hilarious.

[James Acaster]

Was there anything in your house growing up that was like, daddy has that and you can't have it.

[Phil Wang]

Like her car. I was like, I wish. I always wish as a kid I could drive places because where I grew up there was no public transport. So if you had the gloves. So I declared the dragon gloves already,

[James Acaster]

dad, why don't you forget about this glove? Let me drive the car.

[Phil Wang]

You can have the other glove when you're 18. Yeah. I think like just having a car and money. I was like, it feels very hard to do anything without a car and money. That's why I was.

[James Acaster]

How old are you when you're saying this?

[Phil Wang]

Like six.

[James Acaster]

I was like, little Fill wag walking around. It's so hard to do anything about cars and money.

[Phil Wang]

Got it.

[Ed Gamble]

And do you drive now?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, yeah, I got a little car. Got a couple of quid. Yeah, it worked out.

[James Acaster]

You think when you're driving along, you're like, I did it on my dad. Yeah. Who's the daddy now?

[Ed Gamble]

In your face, Daddy.

[James Acaster]

In your face, Daddy. I'm behind the wheel. You couldn't stop me.

[Phil Wang]

I can go wherever I want.

[Ed Gamble]

Cruel that he stopped you driving when you were six. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

This is exactly the same as J Raider's dad. Not buying a second eclair, dad. You can just buy another car. This is the problem here. What kind of car you got?

[Phil Wang]

I've got a hybrid Toyota Yaris. Good for the environment. Good for the wallet.

[James Acaster]

Phil padded his wallet.

[Ed Gamble]

Beautiful.

[James Acaster]

Well, Phil, did you enjoy Jay's tasting menu?

[Phil Wang]

I really enjoyed Jay's tasting menu. He's a man of fine taste, obviously, and it's nice to have the cabbage dish that I know so well. I haven't had in a while. Oysters. Big old fan, then a little. A little tiny cold vodka cocktail in the middle of it. Delish. Spare ribs. Forget about the main ribs. I'll take this. Yeah, I just.

[Ed Gamble]

And you're getting messy.

[Phil Wang]

My mouth is pulling the bone out. Like. I mean, like Flintstones or something. And what. Was there a starch to go with the ribs?

[Ed Gamble]

It didn't. He didn't shout it out. No.

[James Acaster]

Do you want to add one?

[Phil Wang]

I feel. I feel. Yeah. I feel foolish after my whole rant about bread, I'm now asking for starch. I go for it with the. With the ribs. Just some. Just some chips, I think, with ribs. Some chips.

[Ed Gamble]

Love it. I. I don't think we've. We've only done one other tasting menu before, and I don't think we gave them a chance to add anything.

[James Acaster]

Oh, we didn't know.

[Ed Gamble]

But it's a new. That's a new thing. I think you can upgrade one dish.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You should be able to upgrade a dish. But Phil's a God.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Phil's a God in this.

[James Acaster]

So you got to let Phil do what he wants to some degree.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

The other person we had on was John Kearns.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Barely a man, so. And the secret ingredient for Jay, which would have gotten kicked out of the restaurant, was hairy crackling, which I don't know if you think that's fair.

[Phil Wang]

Do people specify hairy crackling? Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Well, in terms of, like, what they don't like. Yeah,

[Phil Wang]

it's a huge genre in the don't like.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Massive, very popular. Lindell likes. I made some chicken crackling once. You ever made the chicken crackling?

[Ed Gamble]

I see it on Instagram quite a lot.

[Phil Wang]

So nice.

[Ed Gamble]

You have to scrape the chicken skin. That seems to be what I do realize.

[Phil Wang]

I do because I put a picture of this chicken crackling up on Instagram and people just like. Because there's all the little like bits of the gillespie. The like hairs and the feathers and stuff are still on it. The feathers, not the feathers, but like I don't know what the smallest bit of the feather stem is like, like the pimples.

[Ed Gamble]

Like there's some little, little sort of

[Phil Wang]

chicken hair coming, coming out of the pimples there.

[James Acaster]

So you took that photo.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You looked at it I guess before you posted it.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And did you think delicious?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And then you were surprised at the comments that were like, that's disgusting.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah. I just expected people to be more open minded than clearly they are.

[Ed Gamble]

So you wouldn't mind Harry crackling, I'm guessing?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, right on. Give it to me. Yeah, yeah, I've had crackling where the, the, the, the brand is still on the screen skin. You know the brand on the pig that they go.

[James Acaster]

Oh God.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you.

[Phil Wang]

Why am I upsetting you so much today?

[Ed Gamble]

If you eat hairy crackling, are you chewing it around in your mouth and spitting all the hairs out?

[Phil Wang]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Making a little toupee out of it, Wearing it to the buffet.

[Ed Gamble]

Phil, thank you so much for coming back to the dream restaurant. We hope you enjoyed your tasting menu.

[Phil Wang]

It's been so nice to return after all this time. So happy to see the restaurant doing so well. Thank you both for having me so much.

[James Acaster]

Oh, and Phil, that's, it's. That will be £200 and 12 pence.

[Phil Wang]

What you've started charging.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. £200.12 please. Phil.

[Phil Wang]

For, for Jay's meal.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Cough up.

[Phil Wang]

What this?

[James Acaster]

Cash.

[Ed Gamble]

Cash only.

[James Acaster]

Cash only. Well, we are really trying to lead you to this callback. All you have to do is say that you're going to pay with exact money. Well, I have 200 instead. You're such a thrifty bastard. You think you have to pay. You can't break out of the fantasy. You're like, what the. I wasn't told how to pay. Looking at Ben desperately. Ben, please, this isn't fair. Philip want me to pay £200 and 12 pence.

[Ed Gamble]

Phil can't improv when even fake money's involved.

[James Acaster]

We should give it more detail to try and lead him to the callback. An exact change, Phil. Ben, please.

[Ed Gamble]

Did you know Phil wanted to buy a wine fridge and it took him three years to make the decision?

[Phil Wang]

It wasn't three. Two. That's two years, was it? Yeah, it was about that one.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But you bought it.

[Phil Wang]

I got it eventually. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And are you happy with it?

[Phil Wang]

Thrilled. I should have got it ages ago.

[Ed Gamble]

There you go. Thank you so much, Phil.

[Phil Wang]

Thanks, guys.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you so much to Phil for coming back to the dream restaurant to have Jay Rayner's tasting menu.

[James Acaster]

How much he's grown over the years, Phil hasn't.

[Ed Gamble]

He just.

[James Acaster]

He loves. He loves feeling like a God now. That wasn't when he first came on.

[Ed Gamble]

Never said he liked to feel like a God.

[James Acaster]

Never said it.

[Ed Gamble]

He loves wine now.

[James Acaster]

Loves wine. Knows all about wine. Knows everything about wine. The fact that not only when he relived that wine tasting menu that he put on for Christmas, not only did he know that for Christmas, but he recited it to us like, word perfect.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Here's the history of them all. Here's what order they were in. Here's where they're from. I was like, I don't think I know that much about anything anymore. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, no, no, no, no. It's too late for me to start learning about stuff.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

All. All I'm doing now is shedding knowledge that I've built.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just. Just get rid of it. Maybe let something, you know, live in the head for a little bit. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But not useful stuff.

[James Acaster]

No, no.

[Ed Gamble]

Never useful stuff.

[James Acaster]

Never anything useful.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. The new thing in the head, of course, is pouring tree over pig, which

[James Acaster]

you have a pet named pig.

[Ed Gamble]

Do have a pet named pig. I don't want to pour a tree on that guy. He doesn't go outside. He'd be so sh.

[James Acaster]

Shocked. Yeah. And he really hasn't met a true.

[Ed Gamble]

No, no. And also, I'm not putting maple syrup on that guy. He's so hairy.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

That would be a huge mistake.

[Phil Wang]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It would take years to get that.

[James Acaster]

Then you'd end up with a cat that looks like mine.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But so fun to talk to, Phil. Well, that was a great episode.

[James Acaster]

It was lovely. Thank you so much, Phil, for. For coming on. And Jay Rayner, if you're listening, I hope that you're happy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

With Phil's response. I mean, you've got to be happy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

He says that he thinks about you when he ever eats an oyster. He makes your cabbage at home. He is a fan. You know he was a little bit harsh on the eclair but you could take some criticism.

[Ed Gamble]

Jay yeah, stop dishing it out if you can't take it mate.

[James Acaster]

Don't dish it out if you can't take it mate. Wow.

[Ed Gamble]

And don't forget Phil is on tour with his brand new show. Oh go to philwang.co.uk for tickets. It's going to be fantastic. We will see you again soon for either a traditional off menu or another off menu tasting menu.

[James Acaster]

Or maybe we'll have have a fourth idea.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh two years time.

[James Acaster]

Oh Spaghettos. Bye bye bye.

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[Phil Wang]

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