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James Acaster
I'm on tour. I'm on tour until August and there are still tickets available@jamesacaster.com I'm looking at you. Glasgow, Belfast. Oh, there was somewhere else. Just please go on the website and buy tickets please. Jamesacaster.com
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 gonna ask that man for directions.
Phil Wang
Hi there. We're trying to get to the comedy club.
Sponsor Voice
Well, you're gonna take a left at the old O at this here road.
Phil Wang
Nah, I'm just kidding.
Sponsor Voice
Let me get my phone out.
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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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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.
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)
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)
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]
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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).
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.