Ahir Shah

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0:28Ed Gamble: Mom, I saw Dylan's dad make dinner, like actually cook, and it was straight fire. He said it was Blue Apron assemble and bake. All the ingredients showed up pre-chopped, and he just laid it out on a baking sheet and no cap. Dinner was on the table in like 25 minutes. Apparently, it's chef design, and it has like over 40 grams of protein. That's a lot, right? So maybe we try it. Just saying. You can be the next Dylan's dad. Blue Apron. Get$50 off your first two orders plus free shipping with code STIR50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more.

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1:44Ahir Shah: Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast. Taking the gin of conversation. Adding the ice of humour. Pouring in the tonic water of friendship. and adding a little slice of giggle, giggling lime.

1:58James Acaster: Listen, most people have just gone just the gin and the tonic and been lazy. You've got to have the lime. He included the lime and the ice. Full respect.

2:05Ahir Shah: I ain't drinking a gin and tonic without ice and lime.

2:08James Acaster: That is Ed Gamble. My name is James Acaster. Together we own a dream restaurant. You know what I mean, Benito. And every single week we invite in a guest. You probably feel like an alcoholic if you're just drinking. Starter, main course, desserts, sopitch and drink. Not in that order.

2:21Ahir Shah: And this week our guest is... Ahir Shah a wonderful comedian the brilliant Ahir Shah yes an award winning comedian as well yes he won the Edinburgh Comedy Awards James yes

2:33James Acaster: second time he was nominated I believe yes to and done yeah he didn't like third maybe

2:41Ahir Shah: third three's enough isn't it I think if you're nominated three times

2:46James Acaster: some of us can only dream of the blessed relief of winning the third time

2:53Ahir Shah: you're five you're five and five and out the running right five and five and presumably

2:57James Acaster: out the running yeah and uh i never won is anyone are you are you the record yes yes that's the record no one's been nominated five times before three four out here there you go yeah

3:09Ahir Shah: so you won it on the fourth time no you won it on the third time no huh he won it on the third he won it on the third time yes yeah yeah and you did five and didn't win it i did five and never one. Yeah, which means, you know, at least... I mean, I know there's people sat at home going, well, how many times have you nominated, Ed? Well, none, but that became clear very early on, so... Yeah, but loads of people... I just got to laugh at James every year.

3:29James Acaster: There's loads of brilliant comedians who've never been nominated. Yes. Um, you know, mine is the ultimate joke. Yes. How many times has Al Murray nominated? Uh, four and one on the fourth time. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. That would have been brilliant for you. Also exciting news, our here show that won the award, ENDS, is available to stream on Netflix now. Very exciting, yes. You can get it on Netflix. If he mentions the secret ingredient, an ingredient which we would take to be acceptable, we will kick him out of the dream restaurant. And this week, our secret ingredient is... Burnt ends.

4:01James Acaster: Because of ends. I'm sorry. I came up with this. I'm really proud of it. Very clever. Ed's told me how clever it is a number of times. Yes. So that feels good. I love burnt ends.

4:12Ahir Shah: Yeah, yeah. They're delicious at the barbecue. Yes. It's the brisket, isn't it? It's the ends of the brisket.

4:17James Acaster: It's the end of the brisket. They've got a... Did they... I mean, is it just what happens anyway to the... Or do they scorch some extra?

4:23Ahir Shah: No, I think they might scorch some extra after and put them in sauce and do all of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like meat butter, man. Meat butter, yeah. Melt in the mouth, baby. Meat butter is like...

4:35James Acaster: That's an Ed Gamble show title. Meat butter. Yeah, you'd go out and do a tour show called Meat Butter.

4:41Ahir Shah: Or a travel show called Ed Gamble Meets Butter. Where you go look into the dairy industry? just go and check out yeah but not in like a isn't the dairy industry bad no who needs that like as in meet a lovely rosy cheeked farmer yeah try some butter with a spoon and that's that that's that and then we're on to the next week rosy cheeked farmer yeah hmm maybe a buxom milkmaid oh dear

5:08James Acaster: oh dear listeners Ed's very quickly turned his butter travel show into looking at boobies

5:16Ahir Shah: That's a huge shame Well, I don't think the dairy industry would be where it is today without boobies, James Unarguable

5:24James Acaster: This is the off-menu menu of Ahir Shah

5:36Ahir Shah: Welcome Ahir to the dream restaurant Hello

5:40Ed Gamble: Welcome Ahir Shah to the dream restaurant, but it's been to you for some time Yeah, do you know what? no one can ever prepare you for what that's going to feel like. Yeah. It felt good. How did it feel? Yeah, it felt really quite overwhelming, actually. I mean, like, you know, with this coming here to the Dream Restaurant, doing this, I mean, obviously, I've known the pair of you for more than 15 years now. And, you know, this podcast starts a long time ago, and I'm thinking, it's going to be my time, it's going to be my time. Podcast takes off in a way that, let's be fair, my career didn't. And all of a sudden, I'm refreshing my feed, and it's like, oh, they've got fucking Buzz Aldrin on this week.

6:16Ed Gamble: Not going to be able to compete with that.

6:18Ahir Shah: We should get Buzz Aldrin on it.

6:20Ed Gamble: We should get Buzz Aldrin. Yeah, yeah. Guy talking about his goddamn space snacks. Oh, man.

6:25James Acaster: Yeah, we haven't had space snacks on the pod. Yeah. Would you? Until today.

6:29Ed Gamble: Would you try some space snacks if you? I feel like I'd give some space snacks a go.

6:32Ahir Shah: Yeah. Yeah. It's all powdered stuff you add water to. No, I don't think so. I think it's dried stuff. I don't think you have to add water to it. Yeah, add water to it. Because that would be a nightmare in zero G, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. As soon as I said it, I thought. you're trying to pour the water into it the water's going up yeah how you doing that yeah

6:46Ed Gamble: it's and this is one of those things that really makes you think and that's why i won't go to space not any of the other it's been offered to you multiple times hasn't it it was part of the

6:58Ahir Shah: edinburgh comedy awards part of the edinburgh comedy award buzz got on the blower to me

7:03Ed Gamble: it's like dude i heard you i heard you hang out with and james pretty soon yeah afterwards do You want me to come pick you up in the spacecraft? That's what he calls it. He calls it the spacecraft.

7:14Ahir Shah: That's what happens. We come in the spacecraft. Bridget Christie had a great time. All of the winners went up to space. Every time I was on the launch pad. Five times in a row.

7:26Ed Gamble: Just there yelling, God!

7:29Ahir Shah: I always think of... God in the spacecraft. Being like, finally. Somewhere she can't get. another little spacecraft following him

7:42Ed Gamble: my head's just doing the gif of this is the one thing we didn't want to happen he turns around and she's sat there oh no um are you a foodie out here you much of a foodie right yes uh i am uh i i didn't used to be uh but sort of it transformed over a couple of things. So firstly, the first time of many times that I quit smoking, because you're like, well, I need something to do with my face and I need something to do with my hands the entire time. So I just started cooking like five, six meals a day. And so that was the first time that I probably got into like cooking and everything just because it's like, if I'm chopping onions, I'm not thinking about the fact that I wish I was smoking 20 cigarettes right now.

8:26Ed Gamble: And got what a thing to remind yourself that it doesn't matter how much time there's been, even me saying this is being like yeah but that sounds great I would love to be

8:35James Acaster: smoking 20 cigarettes you both like love cigarettes don't you yes that's why we can't have them yeah there's a photo famous photo of Ed back in uni where he's got how many cigarettes in your mouth at once five like the file photo

8:48Ed Gamble: of Homer Simpson yeah yeah

8:50James Acaster: I've got five

8:51Ahir Shah: cigarettes in my mouth he's loving it and he's flipping the bird to the camera yeah that was me in my truest form I think yeah and I got really long hair that's all bunching up around the back like a big curly mullet. That's disgusting, isn't it? Yeah, it's gross.

9:03Ed Gamble: I remember you in those days. Yeah, of course.

9:05Ahir Shah: Yeah, yeah, you remember me. Big mullet, five, six days. Five, six days. Swearing at everyone constantly.

9:12Ed Gamble: Not the nice cheeky boy that you think of now. No, exactly. No, I was a legend back then.

9:16James Acaster: Yeah. So that was when you got into food, was it?

9:18Ed Gamble: When you quit smoking? So started cooking loads as a result. And then more... So for quite a while, I lived quite near Borough Market. see lots of sort of very very swish stalls uh there was very um nice restaurants and so occasionally you know a couple of yeah every now and then you'd be like oh do you know what i'm gonna treat myself to some fancy veg what the hell is that that squash looks like italian i'm gonna get that how does that work uh and so yeah like being able to uh sort of live near somewhere like that and do stuff like that that sort of was were there any were there any dishes

9:54Ahir Shah: that you discovered that you could make then that you still return to now?

9:58Ed Gamble: Well, I think that everything that I really wanted to get good at, and I'm nowhere near as good at, was all of the food that I grew up eating, which was, so I'm vegetarian, and this is all like Gujarati vegetarian food. And I love the fact that sort of every sort of individual dining culture from around the world has basically come up with whatever sort of dietary restrictions there might be or requirements. it's like you're still getting a balanced meal all on the same plate just because through thousands of years of trial and error people have ended up in this situation. I'm like, wow, I want to be able to do that, you know, and not feel that I'm going to a restaurant and everyone around me is having steak and then, you know, what was it?

10:39Ed Gamble: We had the portobello mushroom period. A dark time for the community. Benito's shaking his head. Just making Benito's language. He's got replaced. But I thought that we were through the beetroot period we seem to be re-entering the beetroot period and the problem is is that if you go somewhere and eat a lot of beetroot and the following day you forget that you have eaten lots of beetroot you wake up and you go to the loo and you're like well I guess I need to text my family that this is it

11:13Ahir Shah: we've mentioned this before on the podcast I am in favour of setting an alarm for 8 hours time that just says you've had beetroot because you need that because when you you go toilet and then the alarm goes off you're like thank god for that but honestly yeah that's a scary moment I checked on a friend once

11:32James Acaster: a friend of mine a friend of mine had beetroot used the toilet I went in after him I was like did it flush? well there was I think it flushed but there was still remnants it's red

11:44Ed Gamble: it's like Ribena yeah oh my god

11:51James Acaster: I always said to him, dude, are you okay? And he went, I'll be true.

11:59Ed Gamble: So that was the stuff, and I'm sort of nowhere near as good at making any of that stuff as the sort of people who made it for me when I was growing up. I remember when I was trying to learn this conversation with my mum, where I was like, I've been doing this for a while now, and it's just like, I just feel like I'm not getting the same sort of results. Like, is there anything? And she's just like, oh, here, it's just a matter of time. In about five, and this is after a couple of months, so I'm thinking she's going to say five months, just after about five years, you'll be able to, who's got time for this?

12:30Ed Gamble: The same thing every day for five years and it will eventually taste nice. Yeah. And I'm operating on a comparatively easy mode in doing all of this. So I have a story of when my maternal grandmother, the day after she got married. This is 1955. It's an arranged marriage in India. She finds herself in this new family's house. Everyone's out for the day. She's 19 years old making dough for the Rudleys, the chapatis, later that evening. Monkey leapt in through the window and stole the dough and ran off with the dough. It's so up out of the street.

13:09James Acaster: You're going to have to slow the story down now because it's too much for him that a monkey jumped through the window and stole the dough.

13:16Ahir Shah: Is your grandmother like nervous because she's in a new house? That's basically a child. I've got to make this dough. I've got to make it perfect for my new family. What? Monkey comes in, nicks it, and fucks off really quickly. That is perfect. Yeah.

13:31Ed Gamble: And being told the story and her being like, and I was just there being like, oh, I'm like the worst wife ever. This goddamn monkey has taken away. because wives should learn

13:41Ahir Shah: how to punch monkeys as we all know

13:44Ed Gamble: exactly exactly but when you're that new to the game yeah you don't like yesterday was my first wedding anniversary happy anniversary after a year my wife punched three monkeys yesterday yeah of course they were going for like one coming in the letterbox trying to steal our dough

14:03James Acaster: I think the monkey knew that when the monkey got back to its mates I think it was like I stole this off she's about to get married she's so nervous yeah

14:12Ahir Shah: it's 19 the other monkeys are going you stole the dough man you've got to wait until it's cooked yeah you have

14:17Ed Gamble: a stupid monkey in the gang

14:18Ahir Shah: go back and steal a pan

14:20Ed Gamble: yeah yeah yeah and there's actually now a very successful restaurant in that village run by the monkeys run by the monkeys yeah

14:28James Acaster: all of it's stolen from new brides

14:30Ahir Shah: I think there is I think there is a monkey restaurant somewhere oh the monkeys do make stuff yeah there's a monkey restaurant in Japan apparently yeah what I'm not sure if they make the food, they bring you the food. Yeah. Right.

14:43Ed Gamble: Penance.

14:44Ahir Shah: Yeah.

14:45Ed Gamble: For their thievery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hope that this is now what's happening in heaven to my grandmother.

14:54Ahir Shah: Yeah, every day she just sits down and monkeys bring her food.

14:58Ed Gamble: Yeah, exactly.

15:00Ahir Shah: It's all raw, though. It's all raw. It's all raw, yeah. She's still got cooking.

15:03Ed Gamble: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's on account of her sins. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:08James Acaster: she wasn't a perfect baby angel

15:11Ed Gamble: then it would have been cooked food

15:13James Acaster: your show ends it's hitting Netflix very exciting stuff what can you tell people who haven't seen the show about the show

15:20Ed Gamble: yeah so this is the stand-up show that I first did in 2023 and came out on Netflix September 2024 and yeah this is a show that basically started when I was engaged and was just thinking about, I think when you go through big life shifts into a new role, you're naturally like, well, who are my examples to learn by, right? I was thinking, right, the longest marriage in my family that I can think of was the one between my mum's parents, right? Which started off with The Dough Being Stolen by the Monkey. That's not even mentioned in the show. That's a bonus story. Imagine having a monkey

16:03Ahir Shah: jumping through a window's titties. I put in everything. That's the whole show, if I'm writing it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course it is. I'm dressed as a monkey on the poster.

16:14Ed Gamble: London Underground won't let that happen. And the TFL make you, yeah, they make you dress like a cucumber instead.

16:18James Acaster: Yeah, here he is as a cucumber again. This guy loves cucumbers. We can't advertise carbohydrates on the tube. Give the monkey some cucumbers. Monkey sold in the dough, got a changer.

16:29Ed Gamble: Yeah, so it started just thinking about them and their lives, really. and I tell the fact that at the time my granddad, when he was younger than I was at the time, was the first member of our family to come to the UK, which is now 60 years ago, and sort of just started thinking about just the differences between their lives and experiences and what everything meant for them and means to me now as a consequence. And in some ways trying to tell the story of those 60 years in 60 minutes, right, for particularly given that that was a generation whose stories, they were very small in number. The stories weren't really told and were kept to themselves, even within families.

17:13Ed Gamble: It was often very, very difficult to find out the sort of reality of what happened, like drill down into their experiences and their younger lives. Yeah, but I think like it sort of all came from trying to appreciate these people from a previous generation as like the young people when they were my age, right? rather than just like this image that you have of them as, well, that's the oldest man and oldest woman in the world. But obviously you weren't always. To try and get some sense of connection between these generations and what it shows for what's changed in this country and in the world over time.

17:51James Acaster: Nice. I tried to connect with my granddad towards the end of his life, probably in his 80s or something. And I went to visit him for the day. and I was like, I'm going to talk to him about, you know, just his life and discover, you know, learn things that I don't know about him and, like getting blood out of a stone and, at one point I was like, what was like the most, you know, like what was like the best, if you look back at your life, what was like the best bit, like the best area of your life and you thought for a bit and you went, I went on a nice bike ride once.

18:27James Acaster: Okay, and that was it. Okay, I guess so then I went back and said to my dad and I was like he said he went on a nice bike ride and that's it and my dad was like yeah he cycled to France and went all over France and back again and all over the Alps and I was like well why didn't he fucking tell me that he just told me he went on a nice bike ride

18:45Ahir Shah: you should have delved more into the bike ride tell me more about this bike ride he's not just going to give it up for you man he's going to follow up questions yeah I would love for him

18:54Ed Gamble: then to have been like no if I'd meant that bike ride I'd have said that bike ride What I mean is that I cycled to Tesco one time and it was just particularly nice.

19:04Ahir Shah: The weather was perfect. My grand and my dad's dad just used to make shit up. He used to claim he was the Northern Ireland junior champion for washing up. And I believed that until I was like 15. Yeah. And he said he shared his sandwiches with Richard Attenborough on the way back from the war. And I don't know if that's true. You don't know. Yeah. And he said he had a friend called Hookie who could... who could fly, he was in flying planes for the Navy and he could recognise where he was in Britain from the roofs of the pubs. And then Hookie died in a Ken Dodd gig. That's pretty long, those kids.

19:41Ahir Shah: Yeah.

19:42Ed Gamble: That's the only part of that I can completely believe.

19:45Ahir Shah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The roofs of the pubs thing blew my mind, though. Of course it did.

19:49Ed Gamble: Yeah, yeah. Do you think he could do that? No, I think that that's why it blew your mind. That's basically you just going, God, that's unbelievable. yeah

19:58James Acaster: probably not true yeah I mean we really should get into your menu really but like that's what reminded me that every day a friend of mine their kid I think they're about 12 but has gone through a stage absolutely obsessed with if they could get on the roof of any building so like walking through London with them and this kid just kept on seeing a building and was like do you reckon I could get on the roof of that building and I'd be like I don't think so he'd be like I bet I could and then he'd kind of make up the interior of the building in his head to allow him to get onto the top of the roof.

20:30James Acaster: And then as soon as he got on the roof in his imagination, he would panic, genuinely, that he couldn't get down again. And he would be like, how the hell am I going to get off this roof? And I was like, mate, you're not on the roof. You're just thinking about could you get on the roof of that building because you're obsessed with getting on the roofs of buildings at the minute. He was like, but how am I even going to get down from here?

20:47Ed Gamble: It really reminds me of, have you ever watched those videos where an octopus gets stuck in a jar, but then gets itself out of a jar? And it can somehow get itself out of a jar. And my wife got incredibly concerned that if she were trapped in a very large jar she doesn't have the same sort of like appendages as an octopus to be able to free herself from the jar and then it became a real question of like what would i be willing to do in order to get her out of the jar open the jar yeah uh no no but it's so big the the um the jar cannot just be opened it's that i would have to be willing to put myself through certain trials uh that she's invented yes yes

21:27Ahir Shah: okay yeah yeah it's not just opening a jar no you have to go what would you be willing to go through to free me from a jar that does not exist yeah yeah what was it what was the most at any point did you draw the line and go no i'm just leaving you in the jar you stay in the jar at that point

21:44Ed Gamble: yeah that was um that was not uh taken to be within the spirit of the game right yeah which And fair enough.

21:50James Acaster: Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. You're never going to have to do it. So you may as well say, yeah, I'd do that. Yeah, yeah. For every single stage.

21:55Ahir Shah: You know deep down there's some things you wouldn't do to let your wife out of a jar. Yeah.

21:59Ed Gamble: I'm not doing that.

22:00Ahir Shah: Yeah. Obviously. It's time for a while.

22:01Ed Gamble: Like a certain list of demands are given and it's just like, eh, just poke some holes in the top for a minute. Yeah, you'll be fine.

22:06Ahir Shah: Yeah, pop me on the shelf. Hope a monkey doesn't come in the scoop. Gets in the hole. Yeah.

22:15Ed Gamble: Still or sparked in water? I'm going to go with sparkling water, but I've heard a bad thing about sparkling water. Yeah, go on. So a friend of mine had to go to the dentist recently, and they were like, you have no enamel left on your teeth. Wow. Or whatever. It's all worn down. Yeah. What have you been doing? And it's because he only drinks sparkling water. Only? He drinks like, yeah, exclusively sparkling. Well, I don't know if that's what he's brushing his teeth, with or whatever.

22:48Ahir Shah: But that's surely not advised by any dentist. You know how, you know, it's like eight out of ten dentists recommend this toothpaste. You always think about the two who don't. Are they the two who are like, brush your teeth with sparkling water? Yeah. Who gives a shit?

23:01Ed Gamble: And that's who he'd been seeing previously. He'd been seeing one of the two. Yeah. But so I had no idea because you're just like, that's just water with some bubbles in it. Sure. How could that be? That's going to, if anything, it might not be, it might be better for you than regular water. Yeah. Fancy. Yeah. Exactly.

23:16Ahir Shah: But I do think drinking it more than still water does feel inherently like a bad idea. Because it is still fizzy.

23:24James Acaster: I don't see how you do it anyway.

23:25Ahir Shah: Even like beyond that. He might have it coming out of his taps. You can get the taps. Does his friend have it coming out? He has it coming out of his tap. Yeah, there you go.

23:33Ed Gamble: Yeah, yeah. He's the first person I've ever seen who had it coming out of a tap. Wow. And I was like, you know, like in the 16th century when everyone would like marvel at the king because he had gout. and it's like well how rich do you have to be in order to have this like terrible condition and everything and it's like got no teeth left because the water comes out my tap and I'm like and then he's just putting on like six fur coats yeah

24:00Ahir Shah: his smiles and his teeth are worn down to little nubs that's the fanciest guy in the world he must be loaded

24:06James Acaster: he might be brushing his teeth a bit then yeah this guy yeah he could if it's coming out the tap showering

24:12Ed Gamble: showering

24:13James Acaster: yeah loving it

24:15Ed Gamble: just like tiny bullets yeah ow ow ow ow fuck

24:20Ahir Shah: boiling his pasta in it and stuff yeah you couldn't tell what it's come to the boil yeah I would do that actually for a week I'd do everything with sparkling water I think you'd try to do and I'd just walk around the house going I'm living a sparkling life yeah you're living a little sparkling life

24:38Ed Gamble: you got like you know like a bum gun a bum gun yeah yeah have you had that next to the loop I would love the sparkling bum gun it's actually my rap name

24:51Ahir Shah: it's gotta be sparkling bum gun imagine I don't know if I'd like it or not I would love it

24:59James Acaster: the three of us I'm talking about Benito as well have all been to Japan this year and what a highlight that is the toilets there absolutely loved them every single time

25:12Ed Gamble: but do you think they would have been aided by

25:14James Acaster: sparkling water I think so if I was your rich friend with no teeth

25:18Ahir Shah: I would get

25:20James Acaster: a Japanese toilet and fill it with sparkling water yeah yeah and never leave the house

25:27Ahir Shah: never leave the toilet I don't think they fill the toilets with water to shoot up your butt I think they're connected to the water supply

25:35Ed Gamble: what have you been doing

25:36Ahir Shah: yeah I just open the system and put my butt in there

25:44James Acaster: Slosh it around Not supposed to do that

25:48Ahir Shah: Scream arigato at the top of your voice And leave the restaurant With a soaking wet butt

25:56James Acaster: Yeah

26:00James Acaster: This sparkling water you're having Are you going to be able to get it out of your head That it's destroying your teeth Are you going to be able to have this in a relaxed way

26:07Ed Gamble: Well I think that that's fine Surely one of the things in a dream restaurant has to be like, there are no like consequences of like it's not like, oh, and the following morning after I came out of the dream restaurant I had serious enamel issues.

26:23Ahir Shah: Yeah, yeah.

26:23James Acaster: Sure, sure, sure.

26:24Ahir Shah: Yeah, I think so. And also, you're not drinking sparkling. You don't have it coming out of your taps. Yeah, exactly. It's a special treat. It's a special treat. Having it as a special treat you're not like, oh god, it's killing my teeth.

26:33Ed Gamble: Yeah. There's all sorts of situations like I might be allergic to genies. I don't know. I've not met one yet. But let's not add that into the fantasy. situation. It's like, we need to yes and this. Yes.

26:47James Acaster: Oh, I'm yes anding it. I'm just worried that you might be drinking it thinking, oh, my teeth are fucked.

26:51Ahir Shah: Yeah. But it's like, with most foods that are nice, you can't be thinking about, oh God, what's this doing to my insides? Because it's a nice treat, right? Yeah.

27:01Ed Gamble: Exactly. It's like, if you like, we were away for the weekend recently for our anniversary and we had lots of very nice meals. There was a period at the end of it on the Sunday, where I feel a bit, ah, I've basically just eaten butter and salt for the last 72 hours. That'll probably do it. It's good that you felt that

27:22Ahir Shah: because that proves that that's not what you're doing all of the time. Yeah. If you were like, got to the end of that and you were like, well, just another day. Yeah. That'd be worrying, right? Yeah. Yeah.

27:32Ed Gamble: Pop-lums or bread? Pop-lums or bread out here, Sha? Pop-lums or bread? Again, you think you're ready. You're not.

27:38James Acaster: You weren't ready for that. Stop. I'm trying consciously at a time I'm better now. I used to do it to surprise people. And then I just got it. I let the conversation naturally find an end and start doing it again. I was like, why aren't people jumping anymore? Yeah. So I'm trying now is you let me trail off on a point.

27:58Ahir Shah: And every time I think, God, I've said something really boring because James hasn't picked up the thread here. And then he does pop it onto red and they're like, okay. Oh, maybe I wasn't being that boring. James was just waiting to find a moment so he wasn't really listening to what I was saying I don't know what you were just saying before that before I shouted Pop it on to bed I had no idea the monkey again?

28:17James Acaster: yeah

28:17Ed Gamble: oh I was thinking about the monkey sure I like that this is it's almost like James is respawning when he yells Pop it on to bed yeah yeah everything before is gone yeah yeah

28:28Ahir Shah: he's a new genie now yeah a new genie full HP

28:31Ed Gamble: I was thinking about

28:32Ahir Shah: the monkey drinking directly from the sparkling water tank being like

28:36Ed Gamble: what the fuck yeah yeah I love it

28:38Ahir Shah: every time it's the newer

28:40Ed Gamble: we're all in the gutter but some of us are monkeys drinking from sparkling water taps the old quote the old classic drink from the tap you want yeah do you have a preference as in out of papad or bread

28:54James Acaster: yeah

28:56Ed Gamble: papad sorry

28:58James Acaster: Cindy V picked me up on that yeah she always picks us up on that but we've never changed it well it's because unlucky for her Nishikama's mother then disagreed with her and I was like well I'm doing my bean assist bad luck bean is the boss

29:13Ed Gamble: um yes yeah so I'm gonna go with uh Babrin uh but I'm gonna go with I think that this is probably I think that we'll get into uh heaps over this which is that basically until I was pretty much until I was at university, I'd never tried what in most of the UK is thought of as like an Indian restaurant, Indian food. Because that's A, what we were eating at home. We pretty much never went to restaurants when I was growing up. Anyway, on the few instances that we did, sometimes we would go to what I considered to be Indian restaurants. But because I grew up in like i grew up in wembley northwest london and my grandmother and grandfather were in alperton and there's this long road ealing road and wembley harrod there's lots of those big sort of particularly gujarati community there and particularly at the time uh right so we would go to you know restaurants that i would consider indian restaurants but it's because it was sort of regional gujarati yeah uh stuff right uh and so it would be identifiable therefore To be more like the stuff that you're having at home anyway.

30:24Ed Gamble: And so when I started going to places and they were like, do you want Papadums? And it's this like stack of deep fried things. I was just like, well, it's very delicious, but what is this? Because I was used to sort of stuff that was roasted over a fire, which is really lovely. And that's what I would rather have. But yeah, it's just this interesting thing of, and I think that it's because when sort of Indian restaurants started becoming a major thing in the UK. Lots of the people who were founding these restaurants were from Silet in Bangladesh, or what is now Bangladesh at the time, but still have been East Pakistan.

31:04Ed Gamble: And I gather that historically, it was just these families being like, well, let's just, people know the word Indian more. Right, yeah, yeah. So we'll put that name on it. And these became what were understood in the popular consciousness as Indian restaurants. and so when I was like oh cool we're all going to an Indian restaurant and then it was incredibly different from everything but it sort of strikes me as being similar to you know if someone were to go to a quite like a Spanish person going to a European restaurant and suddenly being served Swedish food or whatever like technically uh it's like well it's the same continent man it's like

31:43Ahir Shah: well yeah but it's pretty it's wildly different yeah yeah yeah oh that's interesting but yeah because I think British Indian food to me is like Indian restaurants in Britain are so specific like the taste of everything and it's so nostalgic I think for us just to like sit down and eat a curry

32:01James Acaster: I love like

32:02Ed Gamble: obviously

32:02Ahir Shah: in an almost deserted restaurant that's what it needs to be

32:05Ed Gamble: but it's like a it's like if you've ever had so because these things very naturally will then go towards the sort of palette of the country and the customers that they're in have you ever had like Pizza Hut or McDonald's in like I don't know somewhere in Asia something that you really associate with being a western thing

32:29Ahir Shah: I've had McDonald's in Japan once which is great they do a prawn burger I've had McDonald's in Bahrain airport that was good I'm enjoying this segment of the show where I said have McDonald's I think that might be it you know then I think I was like what am I doing

32:50Ed Gamble: why am i doing this um but like on the one hand yeah i don't want to be it's it's really really great to experience as many different things uh as you want and like you know like i recently for the first time i went to like a georgian restaurant right i never had that before i don't know if that's quote unquote if there are georgian food snobs who would turn their nose up to the specific but it was great and i had a wonderful experience and i'd never tried that uh stuff before lovely right so definitely want to encourage people to do as much of that stuff as possible but i guess the point is it becomes kind of like because it's just that bit removed from what you're used to uh if you're growing up with it being done in a very particular style it's sort of like when when i've had like pizza in india i just be like oh this just feels a bit different slightly like uncanny valley uh situation it's interesting though isn't it the way that yeah

33:44Ahir Shah: different nations will twist certain classic things and then that becomes what they're used to. And if they went to Italy and had pizza, they'd be like, nothing like that. This isn't pizza, mate.

33:56Ed Gamble: Yeah. There's an Indian stand-up, Gunan Gill, who's got a really good bit about this, of going to Italy and having pizza and just being like, where are the chilies? Where's the money? And of course, of course, because that's what you're eating.

34:11James Acaster: So you would like the puppet that you grew up eating that was roasted over a fire.

34:16Ed Gamble: Roasted over a fire. And I would like some of it raw as well. I would like to be able to eat as much of it raw.

34:22James Acaster: You know who you're tempting? Who am I tempting? That monkey's going to come in and steal it.

34:27Ed Gamble: If you've got a raw knocking about. No, and do you know what? Where's the window? No, no, no. The windows are open. I'm just brave.

34:37Ed Gamble: Eating a lot of the raw. Because you get like, you know it's like all of the stuff that you get told by your parents when you're a kid of like, oh, then the tree will grow in your belly and like all of this sort of thing. All right. But you know when they try and pull that shit on you when you're in your 30s? Whatever. I'm just there like snacking on some lovely raw thing. And my mother is insisting that in some sort of spurious way, this is bad for me. I don't believe you at all. I've lasted a long time.

35:04Ahir Shah: I've lasted a long time.

35:06Ed Gamble: I was eating this raw all the time. And I was sneaking in. Doing this constantly. If it were a death sentence, I'd be dead already.

35:15James Acaster: So ratio of raw stuff to the roasted stuff, what are you having for your dream meal? Are you having more raw than the roasted?

35:23Ahir Shah: Is it raw while you wait?

35:25Ed Gamble: Yeah, so have one that I'm not... Yeah, yeah. One's on the fire while I'm having a raw one. Yeah, yeah, nice.

35:30James Acaster: I like that. So it's about 50-50. Yeah.

35:33Ahir Shah: Yeah, you're constantly doing that. Or do you want a 50-50 one where half of it's been roasted in the fire and half's left raw?

35:41Ed Gamble: Oh, that's actually a really good idea.

35:42Ahir Shah: And then you could be breaking different bits off, putting them together to see what it's like together.

35:46Ed Gamble: Yeah.

35:47Ahir Shah: Yeah.

35:47Ed Gamble: I like that idea a lot.

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36:55Ed Gamble: What's your dream starter? My dream starter? So I'm going to go with BaniBuri, which I, A, adore. B, you can basically have infinity BaniBuri. the idea of pani puri now always makes me laugh because my wife's Irish and knows a few words of gudrati that she sort of picked up over time and at one stage not realising that it sounded exactly like this looked at me and said pani means water and puri means puri and it was exactly like mono means one and rail means rail I just didn't imagine it like was it Lyle Langley at the chalkboard convincing a town in order to con everyone by a bunny burry. Which was very good.

37:44Ed Gamble: For those who have not had a bunny burry before, so it's like little crisp sort of puffs of dough. Again, you've protected it from the monkey. Yeah, yeah. I can get that. They've been sort of puffed up almost into little spheres. I don't know what magic they're able to do in order to make this happen, but one side of the sphere is sort of somehow thicker than the other and you can like poke the thinner one with your finger. You can put, you have some like bold chickpeas in there, some potato in there, some sort of mung beans you can have there, like all sorts of things. And then you top it off with water that's like got coriander, chilli, sort of spiced water.

38:22Ed Gamble: We all know what your friend's doing. Yeah. Sparkling water straight on the panneau. Oh my God, yeah, I've tried one sparkling. Sparkling panneau. This is what's known as fusion cuisine. Yeah, yeah. what we're talking about. Sparkling Paddy Murray, man. Yeah. So, I mean, you must both be fans. Yeah, absolutely. Love them. Yeah. Apart from the one I had in Rome.

38:46James Acaster: In Rome? Yeah, in Rome. Well, this is another example of... Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah. Because, have you ever had one that the water is mint flavoured? Not like solely mint. Mint in it, for sure. It was bad. It was like mouthwash. The whole meal was like the worst meal I've ever had. It was a real bad meal. I've spoken about it on the podcast before

39:05Ed Gamble: Panipoi with Listerine

39:06James Acaster: yeah it was basically that and then I had a cocktail that was made with the same thing that was definitely in the Panipoi so it's like well this guy's now done that creme de menthe yeah it was so gross and I spoke about it on the podcast before but he came up to me and I'd finished my main course and went oh you finished it that's cool so like that was like that was like the guy no one ever did that so that is the only time I've had him and it's been bad everywhere else it's always brilliant Do you think that you were being pranked during this meal? I was starting to think, is it going to be something that this is like a fake restaurant?

39:40James Acaster: It's Michael McIntyre's Big Show or something. Yeah, Michael McIntyre's going to come out. Do you ever get those texts? Right. Michael McIntyre has a comedian on and does text to all if you ever received them. I've not received a Michael McIntyre text to all.

39:53Ahir Shah: I used to fall for them all the time. Yeah, James would fall for them the whole time. Every time I get a text from them. I fell for one from Tom Allen. I got it as well. And then James was like, oh man I didn't want to put this on a text group but Tom Allen's just sent me a really funny text

40:05James Acaster: I went man that's Michael McIntyre's thing yeah got me on it but then I got wise to it I hit and like Catherine Ryan went on it and I got a text from Catherine Ryan on whatsapp that was like hey I'm doing a routine about you in my new show I hope you don't mind it's about how weird you were when we first met let me know if you'd like some money when I do it on Graham Norton soon or To be fair, that is the only one that you should have believed. Yeah.

40:31James Acaster: I saw that and I thought, I checked with these guys. And I was like, have you got this text? And they were like, yeah. I was like, right. I'm not falling for that again. So I replied, my wife has died.

40:48Ahir Shah: It didn't make the edit, I don't think. It didn't make the edit, no. You did one the other day. You responded with a picture of Michael McIntyre, didn't you?

40:53James Acaster: yeah Judy Love got one for Judy Love the other day saying I'm going to get a Brazilian butt lift don't tell anyone but they wanted photos of butts that I thought looked nice I've always thought you've got a peachy butt can you send me a photo of your butt I went yeah one second it took a while but I think it came out really well here's my butt yeah

41:19Ed Gamble: and you just oh we're just looking for a photo of a butt like what's a butt that you really like and you just respond with uh well my favorite was always my wife's but as you know she's dead

41:29Ahir Shah: may she rest in peace yeah nice but i should have kept it going that my wife was dead actually

41:35Ed Gamble: i regret that though and i'm interested in the idea and so you had you had bad bunnybury in rome yeah that was great yeah i had some bad bunnybury in portugal uh in the air but i didn't want to believe like you want to be like that all right just because i mean it's a vegetarian restaurant in portugal and everyone's white uh working there and i shouldn't be like turning my nose up oh they've got panipura on the menu that's not going to be sure yeah yeah is it so sure i'm gonna get that that's probably it's going to be really great good for you eduardo

42:12Ahir Shah: give it a go eduardo's easy ordering it he's shitting himself in the kitchen I thought you were talking to Ed

42:21Ed Gamble: Eduardo, Hamas, thank you

42:24Ahir Shah: Eduardo and Hamas

42:27James Acaster: I'll change our names to that it was bad it was the worst well now you know you should just go in with that you should just go like fuck that that's going to be shit just adopt that attitude

42:38Ed Gamble: the best bounty party I've ever had is on Ealing Road about a year ago I was walking up to visit my grandma and there was a shop, you know those shops which seem like they'd be so upsetting because they're blaring out the same thing on repeat out to the street. And it was just like blaring out an advert for their own Bani Buri onto the street. But equally, it was the first time I'd heard it. So I was like, well, I'm going to get some of this. And then as I was waiting, it's like, okay, this is maddening. and then the second that I ate one, it's like, I'm staying here longer and ordering more. And it's almost like that, it then became almost meditative.

43:25Ed Gamble: Because you were connecting it with that taste. Again and again, I was like the winter soldier. I think they've...

43:33Ahir Shah: Were you jet-lagged and love pranks? The idea of only doing one thing as a food vendor is very appealing to me. I think if someone does one thing, you're like, that's got to be good. Yeah. And if they're blaring an advert out for it over and over again, you're like, that's double got to be good. Yeah. Imagine if you'd got them and they were rubbish. Yeah. You're like, guys, what are you doing? What would be your one thing?

43:57Ed Gamble: If I was... If you were a food vendor with one thing.

43:59Ahir Shah: Oh, that's good. Something simple, I think, because I can't... I don't trust myself to cook anything too fancy. And also you want something that's good on the go. this is like that show about fairgrounds deep fried masters yeah something that's good on the go but there may be like just a really good cheese toasty or something is that boring? not if you're really good at it

44:22James Acaster: I'm thinking about the scale as well if it's like the best cheese toasty anyone's ever had they're all going to everyone's going to love it I'm thinking about the margins

44:32James Acaster: my brain I literally thought you said I'm thinking about the margarine I ain't using my dream I was like yeah that's gonna be a shit cheese toast can you remember what this place was called?

44:45Ed Gamble: the place on Ealing Road because everyone's gonna want to know it's Rekli Baniburi is the top one which yeah which I now recall because I heard it 700 times

44:57James Acaster: that is funny that you initially didn't recall it yeah I don't know what that place was called yeah constantly

45:04Ahir Shah: Are they building the entire panipuri and then just giving you the tray of them? So they're putting in the water. You're not customizing it yourself or anything.

45:12Ed Gamble: They made a little tray for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

45:14Ahir Shah: We're going to have to go there.

45:15Ed Gamble: Yeah. You're doing them in one?

45:17Ahir Shah: I'm doing them in one, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's the sort of food that makes me think of you. Yeah, because of the hand gesture. Because you just throw it in, the hand gesture. James loves just throwing things in his mouth, one after another, walking down the street normally. So you can do that in Ealing. Yeah. I can't do it in Ealing.

45:33Ed Gamble: yeah I love this sort of thing that like it's something that you don't really get in the UK and I suppose like different cities and places have it in different ways like your slice of pizza in New York or the is it Cicchetti or Cicchetti or however it's pronounced in Venice and everything where you just got like you get like a thing and put it in your mouth and then it's done

45:52Ahir Shah: yeah

45:53Ed Gamble: but we don't really have that

45:54Ahir Shah: in London no I guess we don't no I'm trying to think of something sausage roll

46:01Ed Gamble: maybe I guess that's it

46:02Ahir Shah: keep it and thinking about stuff

46:07James Acaster: you could eat and walk around sausage roll

46:11Ahir Shah: yeah no you're right but that's not in and done is it that's a few bites you know there's the Colonel's popcorn chicken yeah I wouldn't necessarily say that's a London thing we're going to get in London yeah we do have it in London yeah but we've got the paddypuri in London as well but we're not saying that's a it's British food Kentucky fried chicken man sausage roll that panipuri sounds great and that's the one you want from there that's what you want for your dream meal as you eat it do you want the advert blaring into the dream restaurant actually that would be very nice

46:47Ed Gamble: yeah for it to become like a meditative hum in the background it's the orm of panipuri

46:53James Acaster: I mean because it's your off menu dream meal Ed and I do adverts all the time on this podcast we're very good at it if you'd like we can record a special one for that place.

47:04Ed Gamble: I think that we just see if we can find what it sounds like.

47:08Ahir Shah: Yeah, we can replicate that. Yeah. We're really good at those. To a certain extent we can replicate it. Yes.

47:18Depends.

47:19James Acaster: I'll do entry bar here. If it gets them out of a jar.

47:32James Acaster: Your dream main course.

47:33Ed Gamble: I think that for the dream main course, I would really like a very, very well done Thai and have a bunch of different small portions of a bunch of different vegetarian curries. Everything, have something a bit sweet, like to have everything all at once and be able to have a bunch of things, I think would be my favorite. it and i think that but the style i think that i specifically want this in is that often when you go to like events right like um like just like family events like a large uh thing has been put on and it doesn't like it could be a sad thing or a happy thing or whatever but a very common thing uh which you may have encountered uh is these like segmented plastic plates uh that are all like stacked on top of one another everyone like takes a like one of these plastic plates that has like and you just construct a tie for yourself out of all of these things.

48:29Ed Gamble: And sort of whether the event is sort of happy or sad or whatever it might be, I always associate the specific image of that style of plate with, and everyone, for whatever reason, everyone I love is here. We're together and something's happening and we're all leading in this way with this really thin napkin and a plastic spoon and our hands. It's nice you associate that plate

48:59Ahir Shah: with family and all being together because I think most white people would associate that tray with prison.

49:08Ahir Shah: First thing I thought of. Oh, a prison tray. I've seen those in Orange is the New Black. Yeah. To be fair,

49:17James Acaster: they're with everyone they love. They all really get on in Orange is the New Black. and it looks really nice and some of them really get on yeah well so that's quite nice

49:26Ed Gamble: yeah i i really realized as i as i move through this uh i really realized that increasingly what i'm going to be describing is a meal i could have on any given day yeah in a style you associate with being locked up and it's like so it's on the one hand something i have complete freedom to do. And on the other, the most total restriction of freedom imaginable. For us.

49:55Ahir Shah: Yeah, for us. It's for us. No, this sounds great though. So I think you should take us through. How many segments are there normally on the trade, would you say?

50:04Ed Gamble: There are a variety of styles for this. You know, it's not such a, they're not provided by Serco. There's not a tremendous markup. A PFI contract does not mean that we are paying £12 per segmented plastic plate to this day because it was kept off book in 2003. It's all going to be all right. But there'll be maybe like eight. Let's call it eight.

50:32Ahir Shah: Here's my question. Do you ever get to the point where you're like, I wish there was one segment that was way bigger because there's one thing you like more of and you're putting it in the segment. You're like, oh, no, I'm going to have to breach up. You can keep stuff coming. I'm going to have to go double segment. Sure. He wouldn't like that. I'm stressing out about it. Ed wouldn't like that. Ed wouldn't like going double seg. He'd want a different thing in every segment. Is there a bigger segment for rice? Yes. Yes, there is. So I'm going to use that for my favourite curry.

50:58Ed Gamble: Yeah.

51:00Ahir Shah: He's happy now.

51:00Ed Gamble: And I'm going to use a small segment for rice.

51:03James Acaster: His whole demeanour's changed. He's really happy now that he's realised he can do that.

51:07Ed Gamble: Again, this is the freedom that you have.

51:09Ahir Shah: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but what if the prison guard sees it? What if porn stash sees it? Take us through what's going in.

51:21Ed Gamble: Yeah, so probably, well, you would have some sort of bread, be that like rotli or chapati or puri. In this instance, I would probably want a puri. You would have your rice. You might sort of add to stuff at the end to sort of help you mop stuff up, but you'd have something for dhal. And Gujarati dhal tends to be like, it's not like, you know, like the thick makhni da and stuff that you get like you know your classic dishoom black da which is very sort of like thick and rich and buttery and absolutely delicious don't get me wrong like I'm trying to make it at home felt miserably very upset

52:00James Acaster: yeah it's insane that da it's dangerous it takes five months

52:04Ed Gamble: yeah you'll get there in the end every day but so the it tends to be a bit like a bit thinner it's more like a soup right Then you might have maybe some curry, which is like a soup that you make with yogurt, gram flour, sort of cumin, ginger, garlic, chili, water, everything. There's a sort of like a yogurt-y soup as well. You might have a few curries made with different vegetables. um so for example and like what i really love about this is that basically because it's all based on spice mixes and the way that you're doing things on that end then the ingredient that you then put in to carry that you know can matter and you're doing different things for different reasons and you don't necessarily use exactly the same spice blend uh for anything but it makes it a bit like oh what have i got around all right well i can make that yeah all of a sudden oh all i've got is a tin of butter beans in the house well that can be delicious in 15 minutes yeah nice and it's hot oil aspartame turmeric some sort of whole spice then bit later in the thing you might have chili powder coriander powder cumin powder and just the way that you can like build and layer things yeah and make meals that are incredibly cheap and feed like a large number of people for not very much money uh which is yeah the sort of stuff that you go up eating um and i think that's such a lovely yeah as long as you've got those but the basic sort of

53:36Ahir Shah: building blocks for it you can add whatever you like into it yeah yeah yeah i'm really hungry

53:40James Acaster: now put that out there would you like this to be a particular for your main course and you're having this these plates and you're having all these different things would you like it to be a

53:50Ahir Shah: certain specific family occasion good question i would like proud of yourself aren't you yeah

53:58Ed Gamble: so we we used to have these uh things when i was a kid um where occasionally my dad was mates with like a few musicians and stuff in uh india and when they would come over to the uk uh and they needed somewhere to stay like they were performing a show in the uk uh but they needed somewhere to stay and there was sort of this deal that was worked out where the musician would stay at our family home and then as like a thanks for being able to stay with us while they were doing that show would put on like a really small concert in the living room oh nice uh just and like family and friends would come around yeah uh and so you'd have go the harmonium go the doubler uh in the living room playing this like really really beautiful music and these concerts that would tend to be like almost discursive right like there would be a piece of music and then pausing the guy I would just be twiddling around on the harmonium but recite a bit of poetry while doing that.

55:00Ed Gamble: And everyone's just there eating out of these plates, this lovely food, and listening to this music. So we're also building a soundscape for the restaurant. We've had a Rekni Pani Puri. Seven million times, and then that transitions into gentle harmonium.

55:18Ahir Shah: Does it need to transition? Because maybe the guy on the harmonium could be doing a version of the Rekni Pani Puri song.

55:22Ed Gamble: No, I want there to be like a button. Like, you know how on like fire in the booth, Charlie Sloth will press a button and it'll just do the big, boop, boop, boop, boop, and everything. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. So I want every sort of, the harmonium's going, the doubler's going, there's sort of singing, there's poetry, everything. And every so often, Charlie Sloth is pressing a button that makes the speakers blare, wreckety bunny bunny.

55:47James Acaster: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that. have you ever stayed at someone's house as a comedian just stayed over because you had a gig and then you stayed over at their house yeah but i've not then like done a gig in their living room

55:59Ed Gamble: yeah that was my next question

56:09James Acaster: dream side dish then now before we started the podcast today you said that on the way here you remembered oh shit i've got to do a side dish as well so i can see why you would think that because you've got so many components on this on this main course in this plate choosing the side is a bit

56:23Ed Gamble: tricky yeah well so that's why this is going uh entirely different and it's uh cheesy garlic

56:30Ahir Shah: bread from pizza yes yes yes what country's the pizza i love the sharp left turn and the thing is people would look at that and go why are you doing that that's madness but i think that works I think it'd be delicious with the main course.

56:47Ed Gamble: And it's because I remembered when I was walking here of like, so the only sort of other restaurants that we have, like we would go to like Sagoni's once a year on Ealing Road or whatever. And the other one would be maybe you would go to Pizza Hut on Wembley High Road where it existed. And this was to place it in time. So I remember the first experience that I'd have a restaurant and someone asking whether you wanted the smoking area or the non-smoking area. Just every element of it was aggressively 90s. It's like, we're in Pizza Hut on a high road and I'm giving cancer to a child. I do not care.

57:32That's great.

57:33Ed Gamble: And we would sit in the non-smoking area. But that never made a difference. You could be in a chair. You know how gas works, right?

57:43James Acaster: I always think about Lee Evans for that. Lee Evans did a whole thing about how does the smoke know? Yeah, yeah. And then would do an act out of the smoke, going across this and moving his whole body really fluidly, and then go, oh, no, we're not allowed. And I do like that mime kind of thing of like, mime with the wall, and then move along. He's fucking good. Yeah. I remember like, you know how when you're a child

58:09Ed Gamble: you don't really have any conception of how money works.

58:14James Acaster: Sure.

58:15Ed Gamble: And at the time, maybe it was two pounds, the cheesy garlic bread at Pizza Hut. Now it's probably about£4.55, something like that. £48. Yeah. Who's doing any of this without a voucher? Yeah, sure. But when you're in the restaurant, and it is a restaurant.

58:34Ahir Shah: It's a restaurant.

58:35Ed Gamble: Yeah. and I really remember thinking when I was a child once thinking if I had a really amazing job one day like how old are you when you think of this? how old are you? I'm like 10 yeah yeah great if I had a really amazing job one day if I if when I was growing up I had like an amazing like incredibly well paid job I could have specifically a portion of cheesy garlic bread from Pizza Hut every day every day if I wanted to yeah yeah and it's and it was like those things of when you're a kid and you're like and sometimes you can't get an ice cream from the ice cream van yeah well when i'm a grown-up every time i see an ice cream van i'm gonna get an ice cream and then obviously you don't obviously don't um but like the realization occasionally when you walk past one and you're like i could do this yeah yeah i could do no one no one can tell me no one can tell me apart from a strong genetic history of diabetes that i cannot or must not do this yeah so i'm gonna do it nothing would i like some syrup yes

59:45Ahir Shah: yeah cheesy garlic bread that's that's good stuff man it's next level yeah what is that cheese it's not cheese it's some sort of pizza hut mix some sort of like branded pizza hut mix it's good stuff you get it when you get it on delivering it comes in the little box and it's all greasy on the bottom

1:00:03James Acaster: what like a special little garnet bed box yeah yeah yeah it was like a small pizza box don't act like you don't know

1:00:08Ed Gamble: yeah

1:00:10Ahir Shah: I've not had pizza in years I think I'm gonna get pizza hut

1:00:13James Acaster: yeah I can tell you're gonna get pizza hut yeah I think you're gonna get pizza hut tonight

1:00:18Ahir Shah: I'm in Dartford tonight

1:00:20Ed Gamble: when's the last time you had a PHB pizza hut buffet

1:00:22Ahir Shah: oh god it'll be 20 years I think yeah it's never too late

1:00:27Ed Gamble: to go back just when you thought you were out they pull you back in

1:00:30Ahir Shah: probably back in the five cigs in the mouth days days back then I got those from a cigarette buffet they always used to go hard no prizes for guessing what my favourite part of Pizza Hut was

1:00:41James Acaster: Ice Cream Factory easy and that was when I was at the age where I realised I could do whatever late teens I'm going there with my mates now I can have that whenever I like I can make as many trips as I want nearly the end of my life

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1:02:06James Acaster: Dream drink.

1:02:07Ed Gamble: So is it, well, I suppose the thing is like, is this something that I have to drink throughout the meal?

1:02:12James Acaster: That changes the situation. It's up to you. We've had people choose multiple drinks in the past and have like drinks they have throughout the meal, drinks they have for each course, or just one drink that is their dream drink.

1:02:23Ed Gamble: what your call i think that at the so at the beginning uh i think of this because this is uh so three years ago today in the afternoon i went to a bar at uh there's a hotel inst james's called duke's very like swish place uh and they have a bar there uh that they sell a gin martini they're very known for the gin martinis uh at duke's and what the guy does it's like this guy comes around with like a bar cart that looks like 200 years old. He puts like a drop of vermouth in it and then like chucks away the vermouth like it insulted his mother. Puts it back on, then puts like what I would, perhaps like a tsunami of gin into the thing.

1:03:10Ed Gamble: And then like a cursory twist of a lemon. And then you get that. And it's amazing.

1:03:16Ahir Shah: Yes, we've had people talk about this before and we always plan on going. We've still never been. Joe Quinn said we'd go together and he lied. Florence Pugh said we'd go together and she lied. Yeah, but to be fair when she said it to us we went, you're lying. But then she insisted she wasn't. If there was any chance that Florence Pugh took us for a cocktail that was it, gone. Yeah, we ruined it. When we immediately went you're lying, Pugh! You're a liar.

1:03:40Ed Gamble: Well, I accept that unfortunately others have raised this specific agreement. I think we're more likely

1:03:45Ahir Shah: to go with you.

1:03:46Ed Gamble: You're more likely to go with me. More direct access. The reason that I would like to do this is that And yeah, late afternoon, three years ago today, I went for that martini with a woman who I'd been going out with for five weeks at that stage. And a few hours later, we were engaged. And we've now been married for a year.

1:04:07Ahir Shah: Maybe we shouldn't go.

1:04:09Ed Gamble: Yeah. So it's a drink with... I've not been since.

1:04:14Ahir Shah: It's a strong drink.

1:04:16Ed Gamble: It's a drink with a wonderful memory of a wonderful day. And you're like, something. You have this drink and you're like, something amazing might happen. Yes. And then it did. Yeah. And I had to tell that story because it was the only way to get her out of the jar she's currently trapped in.

1:04:30Ahir Shah: Let's remember. Now, this is a place

1:04:31Ed Gamble: you're only allowed to buy two as well. Yeah. Well, I don't know whether it's a hard and fast rule that you're only allowed to buy two, but you definitely can't have more than two. Yeah, yeah. Because of the whole death. Yeah, because you will die. Yeah.

1:04:45Ahir Shah: But will it be as good as I imagine it? Because it's still up there with my things I think about quite a lot. Yes. we tried to go for your birthday once we did so it was

1:04:54James Acaster: but I didn't know that so it was a surprise my girlfriend had sorted it out and she said but she told me like you know tonight we're going to go to Dukes and in my head I was like oh man I meant to be going to Dukes with Ed I'd like you gotta lay the law down I might be in trouble here but whatever he won't find out but I didn't know that she had secretly organised that Ed and Nish and people would be coming. But it turned out on the way there, you guys had gone already to Dukes. We tried to go ahead and get, because you can't book or anything. So they'd said, no, you can't come. It's fully booked.

1:05:29James Acaster: So then you guys had found another place, the Connaught. The Connaught, but you were there. But I still didn't realise what was going on. So we went to the Connaught, but I was thinking, this is Dukes in my head because I've been told we're going to Dukes. So we go into the Connaught. So I think I'm in Dukes. I see Ed and Nish and they're like, fuck, we've got to hide.

1:05:50James Acaster: I'm supposed to go to the Dukes with Ed. He's going to fucking see us. We've got to get the fuck out of here. This is the fucking worst thing that could have happened. It's just like, they are here for you.

1:05:58Ahir Shah: Also, it is your birthday. Also, in your head, why would you not be annoyed with me for going to Dukes with Ed? Because you thought I was in Dukes. Oh, you needn't think I didn't prep that. If he has a go at me, I'm going to go, were you fucking here without me? You're here with Nish. Anyway, I think we drank seven martinis.

1:06:18James Acaster: Yes. that's too many that's too yeah it's the only time where we've tried to order more and the waitress has gone you've been here for ages that's what she said

1:06:27Ahir Shah: you've been here for ages but they brought they brought olives and little crispy snacks with every round we ate too many olives yeah well we all had too many olives some of us saw them the next day

1:06:38James Acaster: let's put it that way yeah I saw my partner's olives the next day if you're pardon the expression but that's

1:06:48Ahir Shah: a lovely story though. That's a lovely memory for you. Do you go back there? Are you going to go back there for anniversaries and things like that?

1:06:54Ed Gamble: Yeah, I think our anniversary was on a Monday. That seemed like a catastrophic idea. Come on, man. You're a comedian.

1:07:04Ahir Shah: She's a civil servant. Just bring her along for the ride. Civil servants are drinking in the week, surely. How will the business of government?

1:07:13Ed Gamble: She's in the office right now. Taking the government's uh insistences to heart uh yeah so you want that at the beginning i like that at the beginning and then and fair play to like i got a lot of time for and i know that it's extraordinarily difficult in the restaurant business to make money when you're not like being able to upsell booze in quite a big way um and so i know that with a lot of a i think it's really cool that there are more sort of quite like high-end Indian restaurants now like JKS have done amazing stuff with that and you just feel as though like I get why they want to push like really swish wine with that sort of because you got to make money right but in my opinion it doesn't really go together sure so well and if that's the sort of food that I'm having like if it were a different meal then I'd have some nice wine but with this sort of I mean it doesn't really make sense so I would like properly thick mango lassi I think that the best one I've ever had was in a restaurant in Manchester with I was with our friend Pierre Novelli and it was like so thick that we basically had to eat it with spoons and it was brilliant I'm really gutted because I can't remember the name of that restaurant it was many years ago now but there are other places that do great ones if you're in the north of England there's a small chain called Bundabust, which you may well have been to.

1:08:45Ed Gamble: I think like Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds now. Might be in some more places as well. And I go there like anytime I'm in one of those cities. Because it's all veggie as well. All veggie. And it's like Gujarati street food, largely. And it's really, really like high quality stuff and just enjoyable. And they're more like, this goes well with pints. we're going to have a bunch of pints that this might go well with uh but whenever i'm there because i tend to go before shows or whatever uh get a big old big old mango lussie nice it's

1:09:21James Acaster: all wonderful great well so that'd be your that's your dream drink the lussie but at the start you've

1:09:27Ahir Shah: got the martini at the start great martini brilliant lovely that's good because the martini is like a bit of rocket fuel at the start of the meal but then you're not like getting smashed throughout the whole thing you're bringing yourself back with the lussie yeah it's like you know you're

1:09:39Ed Gamble: starting out you've got a hyperbolically boozy gin martini yeah you're eating an infinity of bunny burry some of which have sparkling water in there uh there's a sort of thumping baseline of the recordy bunny burry mix uh going on in the background everything's you're feeling you're feeling like you're going crazy like this is it for you everything then everything just chills out with your uh with your segmented plastic plate and your uh don't p.r. to join you for the lussie I think yes I would like to have Pierre there with the less yeah

1:10:11James Acaster: it'll bring the spoons yeah

1:10:16James Acaster: we arrive at your dream dessert what are we talking

1:10:19Ed Gamble: well so quite often there would have been like with the main there would have been a bit of a sweet with that so quite often with your shark so with your curries and the bread and the you'd also have something sweet so you've got like there's russ like a mango pulp uh that you often have going in one of the segments yeah so you could have that along with um or you might have gore which i think is called uh jaggery it's like sugarcane uh stuff that you occasionally have and then loads of other uh things that people might know if you've ever been to a shop like umbala or whatever you might have seen like you know rasmalai jalebi uh gulab jam and these things The diabetics forbid an Indian cabinet.

1:11:08Ed Gamble: I stare through, press my nose up against the glass,

1:11:11Ahir Shah: have a look at all those things.

1:11:13Ed Gamble: Yeah, and then you see sort of older generations of your family wondering why these diagnoses have happened to them. Absolutely fun, all this stuff.

1:11:24Ahir Shah: Every year on the Radio X show that I do with Matthew Crosby, our producer Vin brings in like a selection of Indian sweets once a year. and I try them on air, and I'm like, right, that's enough for me, just little bites. Matthew then takes all of the rest of them home and eats them on the way home, and we get texts from him that don't make sense. Like, he is high as hell. He's going mad. When he used to drive back from the studio, we used to worry about him because he'd put them on the car seat, and he'd be driving back, just like popping all the sweets in his mouth, just like fucking buzzing off his head.

1:12:00Ahir Shah: So sweet.

1:12:01James Acaster: Yeah, yeah. I remember the first time I had those as a kid, and just being like, I'm in heaven, this is the best time. I'm converting. We went and had, I think at a mosque and I was like, this is the best fucking thing in the world. I'm going to go home and tell my parents I'm not a Christian anymore.

1:12:19Ed Gamble: Great. But I feel as though that's almost like, it's a bit cheating, right? To say that as part of the main course, you've got a nice sweet thing on the side. And so I was like, right, well, I've got to come up with a dessert I was literally having my cake and eating it in this situation, right? So I've got to come up.

1:12:37Ahir Shah: Also, it's part of the thing, right? It's traditionally what you would get. Yeah. And also, even if it's not, you can just make up anything and say it's a tradition. We'll just have to go, oh, how wonderful.

1:12:47Ed Gamble: Yeah, there's this bit at the end where at the end of each meal, like two white guys each give you 20 quid.

1:12:53Ahir Shah: Oh, that's such a wonderful tradition. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:12:56James Acaster: You could have made up any thicker of money. You got up with 40 quid.

1:13:05Ed Gamble: so i was like right there should be something different uh for and not just sort of in keeping with all of the rest of the meal for dessert and it would be uh ideally something that would make at least one of you furious uh just like your face did something absolutely fascinating uh then uh i think and it is not conventionally thought of as a dessert but we're quite near there at the moment here we go jose uh on bermondsey street fantastic in south london fantastic restaurant very much recommend the tortilla in particular is my favorite thing that they do very very good yeah um we had a nice meal okay and it's not it's not a dessert but if you order it it will come last they do fried goat's cheese with honey uh on it yes okay i'm uh are you all right with that i

1:13:55James Acaster: think i am all right with that because i think i tried some of that and it is very sweet and delicious yeah and uh i would say does work as a dessert yeah so i feel okay about that for me as a cheese board as well i think you might have found the perfect somehow

1:14:10Ed Gamble: i thought we needed this is bringing people together yeah yeah because that's such a good choice i'm really taking centrism to a whole new level

1:14:20Ed Gamble: yeah and that honey's so good as well like proper nice honey it's amazing and because like well one of the things that you have if you're getting any sort of meal that's just like little bits right uh then you're like oh well i've had all of these things but i'm not particularly full yeah right and you feel and then this goat's cheese is put in front of you and if it's to say it's just two of you there and you have half of it each and then all of a sudden you go from well i i could have had like four more things to if anyone is to suggest that i eat in the next 24 hours. Yeah. I'm going to explode.

1:14:59Ahir Shah: Yeah. It's a definitive end to the meal.

1:15:02James Acaster: And you're just eating that with a spoon. You're not dipping anything in it. There's nothing. You're just eating that like a yogurt.

1:15:08Ed Gamble: I mean, it's got this like, and it's, I can't really describe the texture. I wish I was like. Depends what sort of goat's cheese it is, I guess. Well, there's like, there's a softness to, I would say like the mayo, but then because it's fried, like the, almost the outer edges become crispy as a result. So you've got this real softness and warmth with the real crispiness and the sweetness of the honey. And it's really, yeah, it's really remarkable. I want it.

1:15:38James Acaster: Yeah, it's hard to be angry about it because I know that it's delicious. I know that I would love it. I mean, personally, I'd like it as a bridge from the main course to the dessert. Yes, I thought you were going to say that. After this, that would be my favourite way of doing this. But it is so good that I can't go, oh, I've got to get angry because it's cheese for the dessert.

1:15:55Ahir Shah: There's honey. And honey's like the sweetest thing on the planet.

1:15:58James Acaster: Yeah, it's the original sweet thing. Shout out bees. And read your menu back to you now, see how you feel about it. You were like sparkling water. You were like, 50-50, raw and roasted over a fire. Start a panipuri from Rekdi Panipuri. Main course, veggie, tali. Side dish, pizza hurt, cheesy garlic bread. drink gin martini from the from dukes at the top of the meal thick mango lassi with piano with his spoons later on also i've missed out so many details here you've got the band playing in the room you got the specific plates you got the advert playing you got charlie sloth there's a fried goat's cheese with honey from jose delicious that sounds great i hear that's a really delicious meal i think uh is there any particular bit in that it makes you feel

1:16:48Ed Gamble: what I feel especially happy about with this is that with the possible exception of the presence of Charlie Sloth I think I could make all of this happen yeah Charlie Sloth would do it yeah just be like email him just being like Charlie there's only one thing standing between me and my dream I'll even make the custom button and sound effect

1:17:11Ahir Shah: yeah when so all of that is there what are you most annoyed if the monkey comes and steals one bit of it? I never heard the last of the monkey.

1:17:21Ed Gamble: What are you most annoyed if the monkey takes? No, I would like, given that the monkey caused so many problems at the beginning of a meal in 1955, I would like, in the present day, for at the end, everyone's plates and glasses and everything to be cleared away by the monkey. By the way, this monkey is still alive. This monkey is a winter.

1:17:48Ahir Shah: I like to imagine the monkey is a broody old man.

1:17:52Ed Gamble: Very whizzy. He's had time to reflect. And yeah, so that monkey at the end. And somehow he's moved from Nakhor in Kudrat to London in the intervening time. But yeah, he jumps in through the open window at the end of the meal and tidies everything away.

1:18:13Ahir Shah: Oh, yeah.

1:18:14James Acaster: I'm imagining that he's got like Chippendales, like a collar and a bow tie yeah but he's really old so he's got tiny little reading glasses

1:18:22Ed Gamble: no he's got a little medal that says Northern Ireland washing up because he's been robbing you

1:18:32Ahir Shah: I'm happy that monkey comes back to hell yeah I'm really happy the monkey came back to hell yeah good on it thank you very much for coming to the Dream Restaurant My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

1:18:49Ahir Shah: Well, there we are, James. A wonderful episode with Ahir Shah. Forgot that Ahir's a vegetarian, so therefore was never going to choose burnt ends. Wasn't going to choose burnt ends. So we didn't have to kick him out. That was nice. He could have said, oh, I love, there's like these aubergine burnt ends. What would he have said to that?

1:19:05James Acaster: Oh, well, that would have been, we would have had to kick him out. Vegetable style burnt ends. We said burnt ends.

1:19:10Ahir Shah: We didn't say beef burnt ends. No, we didn't. We said burnt ends. so yeah but it didn't happen the poppadoms might have been burnt on the end if you're doing them over a fire oh we should have kicked them out everything that's burnt on the end

1:19:22James Acaster: we're harsh delicious menu I'd like to eat pretty much all of that I think yeah really good

1:19:28Ahir Shah: I mean it's wrong that the main thing I've taken away from that is I really want to eat some pizza hut garlic bread with cheese isn't it

1:19:35James Acaster: yeah that is pretty wrong but I think the main thing you've taken away from it is the monkey oh yeah the monkey you love the monkey I want to meet the monkey yeah yeah I liked what you did the monkey impression and he did the kind of... Have you seen Chimp Crazy yet? No, what's that?

1:19:47Ahir Shah: Man, it's a documentary series. It's from the makers of Tiger King. It's about a lady who's obsessed with monkeys. Yeah, sounds good. It's brilliant. I watched a documentary

1:19:55James Acaster: about the Zodiac Killer the other day. It's great. Yeah, yeah, really good. Definitely know who did it.

1:20:01Ahir Shah: Enz is also available to stream on Netflix now. There is no excuse for you to not watch this show. Zero excuse. Yes. Well, thank you very much. I'm starving now. I'm absolutely famished. Goodbye

1:20:13James Acaster: Bye

1:20:42James Acaster: that I take it in the hand and the mouth like communion. Did you? I did. That kind of brings us on to the topic of our new podcast, Ignore That Feeling, a show by two ex-Catholic girls who have never learned to acknowledge a single emotion ever. And the podcast is out every Tuesday, starting Tuesday, the 10th of February. So please listen and subscribe.