Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
From Sold-Out Hotels To Secret Menu Wins: A Night Out’s True Price
We chase the joy and the cost of going out, from sold-out Madison hotels and concert plans to the chaos of outsourced delivery and the strange science of forever-hot Chinese food. By the end, we reframe the bill as fuel for an unseen crew who make a single night possible.
• planning a concert trip to Madison and hotel scarcity
• tallying the true cost of a night out
• best part of dining out beyond the food
• letting servers choose and finding hidden menu gems
• strong food takes on octopus, celery, lettuce and capers
• why delivery is outsourced and how it fails
• DoorDash timing, cancellations and cold food
• Chinese takeout rituals, heat, containers and utensils
• credit card fraud on third‑party ordering sites and fixes
• tipping culture, fee creep and what the money supports
• reframing spend as paying the people behind the night
Thanks for tuning in. We’re here every Tuesday. Try to tune in, tell your friends. Don’t forget to tip your waitress. Tip your waitresses.
Why do we have to take that top shelf stories with Jay, Chris, and Tony? Oh man. We're here again, you guys? We're not actually here. Another day? Another podcast. Another top shelf story. I'm Chris. Got Tony and Jay here. Hi, Chris. So, like, we come here kind of to like entertain ourselves, right? I mean, this is a night out. It's a week night. We're hanging with the boys. We're we get food. We maybe indulge in a little cocktail.
SPEAKER_01:I get actually excited to come here because I can drink without getting yelled at. See? It's like a vacation. I don't know. I've yelled at you a couple times this year. And if I do sound too white uh drunk, then yes, we're on our like fifth episode in one week one night.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, sometimes we'll record more than one in a night because we give it a nice run here.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah, but I I start the show sober.
SPEAKER_03:Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_01:Tony's always sober in every episode. That's not entirely true. Oh, he is. He drinks just sprite. And if it's not sprite, he puts a tiny bit of like a 40 proof. Over action mix. A 40 proof, but he puts in like half a shot. Whatever. Don't judge.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, right. I won't. But yeah, you know, entertaining yourself. You gotta go out and do shit, right? Because otherwise life gets too monotonous, too boring, too. I'm sick of routines. Whatever. Routines. Routines are terrible. Because I'm going out, I as you guys know, I like to go to concerts for my entertainment. Oh, you're the you're the concert connoisseur. So I'm going to Madison this weekend to go to a concert. Seeing this band Mo. Deftone? Oh, Moe's. Mo's M O E. From S okay. From Syracuse, New York. And they've been playing for like 30 years now. 25 years. Great band. It's gonna be a great time. My mom's going. She was the one who really pushed to go. And then my brother. So the three of us, and then my friend Travis, because my mom realized she bought four tickets, not three.
SPEAKER_01:Are they opening for Humphreys McGee?
SPEAKER_03:No, but they are actually playing a game, a show on Friday with Humphreys, a late night show. I wish I could go to. Yeah. I wish I could go to it, but I can't, because life. But you gotta go out and entertain yourself, right? So we're gonna go out to Madison. So I'm like, we're looking for hotels. Guess why we can't get a hotel, why we had a hard time finding a hotel in Madison on a Saturday.
SPEAKER_00:Because it's fucking Madison, and every time I've tried to get a hotel in Madison, they've been sold out.
SPEAKER_03:This is true, also. Yeah, the Madison Hotel Circuit is a racket. Don't go to Hilton's, they got fucked up bitches. But also, college football. College football's in town. Ohio State's in town. So I can't even go to this little concert without getting roped under the cold raked over the coals?
SPEAKER_00:Roped under. So real quick side note I was uh I was doing a job in Madison a couple years ago. Niches? Nashes? No, niche, niche. And it was a job I had to work at at night. So I was getting done at like 1.30 in the morning. So I needed a hotel. And uh I go to a hotel just like I normally would anywhere, and I go up to the desk and I go, excuse me, kind sir, I would like your finest one bedroom suite. Yeah. And they they go, well, we're sold out. We're sold out. And I said, Okay. And they go, Well, we got four other hotels, let me check.
SPEAKER_01:How much does it cost to sleep on the couch in the waiting room?
SPEAKER_00:They were like, let me check. And uh they're like, no, everybody's sold out, and then I go to another one. There's a whole bunch of locations in Madison, and uh they're also sold out, and I said, Well, what's going on here? And they're like, Uh, it's Madison. Yeah, we're always sold out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they have terrible hotels.
SPEAKER_00:And uh he goes, The closest we can find you to Madison is in the city of Delafield. And I go, That's fucking crazy because I live in Delafield.
SPEAKER_03:For real, yeah. But you know, gotta go out. So we're going to this concert. Uh, hotels are hard to find. Found a hotel though, luckily, right? Regular, somewhat regular.
SPEAKER_00:So they're letting you bring the camper to their parking lot.
SPEAKER_03:Right, I wish. I should have. We were gonna do that, but there's not even anywhere to put your camper in Madison.
SPEAKER_00:Walmart.
SPEAKER_03:I don't even know if there's a Walmart in Madison.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you're right. Come on, you know, put it in a target parking lot, and that just wouldn't look right for the brand.
SPEAKER_03:But like, so you get a to go out and have fun, you gotta go get a hotel. You gotta drive to the place you gotta go to. Get a hotel, get the tickets, you gotta get some dinner, right? A couple drinks, maybe a souvenir. Just to go out and have fun costs you like three days of work if you're lucky.
SPEAKER_01:Right? I was just gonna point out the fact that you don't have to go to dinner. Is there a quick trip nearby? Well, right. You can even that though, you're still gonna drop a 20.
SPEAKER_03:Still going to dinner. You're gonna drop a 20 at the quick trip. 15 bucks. Easy. Oh no. Quick trip, you're getting a Gatorade or drink, then you're gonna get the cheesy bread sticks, you're gonna get your shit, your muffins that make you poop or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Hide hide those uh tortilla, what are those fucking torpedo tortillas things that you get in the uh the heated warming rack? Hide them in the donut fucking thing and cash out with So you want to steal from No, it's not stealing, it's it's getting extra for yeah, it's stealing. That's stealing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, stealing. Plus, you don't want to go out on a night and enjoy yourself and eat the same fucking stolen dogs you got. They got a lot of other two.
SPEAKER_01:They got a variety on their side, they got like pretzels and wedges and macaroni and cheese.
SPEAKER_03:But then I also think I'm like, well, no shit, this stuff costs so much. The people are helping me. Like, there's gonna be a room I could stay in with a clean bed, clean for clean everything, ready to go, at least put into the look clean. I'm gonna go out to dinner. Someone's gonna be like, hello, sir. How can I serve you? And they're gonna do all this stuff for me, bring me my stuff. Never had somebody at Arby say that. Yeah, you know, the cook's in the back, he's fucking away from his family frying up chicken for me. And and the the band, they showed up. They had a guy that had to fucking carry their guitar in. Everybody's gotta get paid.
SPEAKER_01:I want to say a quick question for everyone. I don't want to deteriorate. No, we're good. What's the best thing about going out to eat besides getting the food made for you?
SPEAKER_03:Not having to do dishes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's the no cleanup. Okay, so your dishes no cleanup. No cleanup, Tony.
SPEAKER_00:Well, so bottom of soda. I drink uh I drink lots of sprites. Like, I I get my money's worth just on sprite alone. But uh, so I do restaurants.
SPEAKER_03:What do you do when they're like we only have Sierra Mist or Oh, then I go, I'll take a water. And he leaves.
SPEAKER_01:No, what's the favorite thing about going out to eat?
SPEAKER_00:What's the best thing? He said dishes. What's yours? So I I go to restaurants different than most people because you do your own dishes at the restaurant.
SPEAKER_03:He always has the waitress order for him.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I have them bring me their favorite meals. So that's your favorite. My favorite thing about restaurants is I try things that I would never normally order or prepare for myself at home.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like that's the worst time to do it because that's when you're paying the most for something you might not even eat. Yeah, you want to eat something you know is gonna be good if you're putting your money down on the table. Or if like if you want to try something different, you buy from the store and take it home and eat it or uh try it and be like, okay, this sucks. I have a backup plan. Yeah, but the restaurant.
SPEAKER_00:See, the thing is is you go to so this is just a for instance, there's a little restaurant about five minutes from here that I went to. And it's a it's a fairly fancy Italian restaurant. Bizzolis? Yeah, yeah. Your side dish is a slice of shitty pizza. Um, but no, it's it's a fairly nice Italian restaurant. Place is always packed, great food. What what do you get when you go to an Italian restaurant? Spaghetti? Spaghetti, chicken parm or chicken. Chicken parm. Get pear. Parm parm. You always gotta go parm. But see now, when you put it in the waitress's hands, somebody who eats, man. Somebody who eats there every day and knows, like, hey, dude, our fucking chicken parm is is alright. It's alright. Like, I'm not writing a fucking, you know, good review on this restaurant based on our chicken parm, but our lasagna is fucking crazy. And then I get the lasagna. Like, I wouldn't necessarily order what I get. And I'm always super happy that this happened. But I go to this nice Italian restaurant and I ask the waitress, and her eyes light up. And you know, when when somebody's eyes light up, because you say, bring me your favorite, not the most popular thing here, not the thing everybody orders. Bring me your favorite thing. And I fucking stress this to them, and then their eyes light up, and they're like, Oh shit, like, no, you you ain't gonna believe that shit. And then they'll bring me half the time I get shit that's not even on the menu.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was gonna say they just go back to Pedro and they're like, hey Pedro, make me my lunch I normally get from you. And then he whips it up.
SPEAKER_00:I get some wild ass shit. But at the Italian restaurant, I get this fucking char-grilled pork chop.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That that ain't Italian, it wasn't fucking smothered in red sauce. There's there's no banana peppers on it. There's nothing that made it Italian, it was just their pork chop. And she brings it out and sets it in front of me, and she's like, she looks at me. Is it was it breaded? Like dead my. No, it was grilled. And she's like, You're gonna lose your fucking mind when you try this pork chop. Did she wait till you eat and take a bite in there? And then and then when I go to start cutting it up, and this happens every time this happens, and I could see the waitress get or waiter, you know. Don't be that happens sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, don't discriminate.
SPEAKER_00:I've had a waiter once, but it was at a real nice place where women couldn't handle serving her. Oh, but sexist now. Uh when when they give you that look like, oh shit, like I'm bringing you the fucking pork chop, and you're cutting it up, and you look over toward like the kitchen, and you see the little galley doors that open both ways where they come flying out, and you see all the servers standing there, like, is he gonna like it? Is he gonna like it? Dude, it happens every time.
SPEAKER_03:It's because that's not a common thing for these people.
SPEAKER_00:They can't believe that somebody fucking did this. Like it makes them almost as happy as it usually makes me.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's only backfired once. I went to this fucking place and it was it was actually a steak restaurant.
SPEAKER_03:And she got you a salad, didn't she?
SPEAKER_00:She brought me out a portobello uh burger and she sets it down in front of me. And she goes, just so you know, I'm a vegan. And I'm like, God damn it, dude.
SPEAKER_01:Portobello mushrooms taste meaty.
SPEAKER_00:It was so it was delicious, and I've had those before many times, but like I'm expecting because this is always a roulette on my side, right? Because she could bring me out the$12 pork chop that nobody orders, and she's like, This is the best fucking thing Pedro knows how to make. Or why does it gotta be Pedro? Didn't you just say Pedro? I did earlier. Yeah. Uh it could be the$12 pork chop that nobody orders, but is like the hidden gem on the menu, or they could look at it and go, Well, I get paid 20% on it, so then they bring me the Tomahawk lobster combo. Right. And I'm like, ain't no way this is your favorite fucking thing here because they don't let you get this for free. Right. So, you know, those two things happen, and when they do bring me out the fucking seafood jamboree that's$182 or whatever the fuck it is, seafood for nine. It is what it is, it is what it is. Like I'm always I'm still happy with it.
SPEAKER_01:All right, so I mean, his is cleaning dishes, and yours was that long entire thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, mine's that whole long entire thing. Part of it is too much.
SPEAKER_01:That's hard to explain because to me, it is ordering things. No, I I mean I I I got exactly what you're talking about. You asked the waitress waiter their favorite dish.
SPEAKER_00:Like it since I started doing this, you know, there's a lot of ingredients that I don't I don't particularly love. Like, I don't just a couple things, like I don't particularly like ginger, or I don't particularly like cloves. And there were there was a time in my life where I didn't where I didn't like capers. So if I'm like looking at a menu item and I'm looking through it and it says, you know, whatever, blah blah blah, and s served with hollandaise sauce and capers, I'd be like, Well, I don't like capers, so I ain't getting it.
SPEAKER_01:Do you like octopus? Yeah. Really? So you're adventurous then, because octopus tastes like fucking chewed up gum, heated up and recooked. It tastes like a fishy rubber band. It's disgusting. It is wild that's absolutely disgusting. I don't why. Yeah, like I don't know how do you when do you like I don't even know when to swallow it?
SPEAKER_00:Just keep chewing like bubblegum. Like I still I I got octopus like two weeks ago. I'm still I have a piece of it in my mouth that just it's not running. It felt like I could blow a bubble at one point. It's terrible. But you know the thing is is is I you really the only thing that I don't fucking like at all is celery. It's the only fucking thing. That's a fucking thing. Bro, I hate celery. It's the only soups? Not with celery in them.
SPEAKER_01:A good soup has celery, you don't even know. I like a great oxtail soup, and Chris is right. That is one of the things. Celery's like gone.
SPEAKER_03:Small ingredient in it, but it's have you been are you are people uh you gotta use the vegetable peeler on the celery and shave off that outer layer that's like stringy to the chalking on the fucking stringy parts. Like most good rib rubs and stuff have celery salt in it.
SPEAKER_00:So that's the best the the bite. That's salt is amazing. The fun the funny thing is, is I don't mind celery salt and celery powder. Is that a thing? Yeah, because it's not made of celery.
SPEAKER_01:They just call it celery because it's a popular because you would put it on celery. No, no, you not at all. You it's just a popular name, and it makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:I think you're wrong. It's got the same bite. I might be I might be right. And I don't understand.
SPEAKER_03:I don't like peas.
SPEAKER_00:Like, I I it's in every soup I've ever ordered, and it like I just eat around it. I pick them out.
SPEAKER_01:You never actually order soup without well, actually, how can they take to order soup and haven't taken ingredient out?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Is there any way you can strain the cell? Trace it out, kick it through. Just get the celery out of that.
SPEAKER_03:I'll tell you what, just bring me the strainer, I'll do it. I did not think that out clearly.
SPEAKER_00:That would be very hard.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you know, that would be hard. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so celery, and then the other thing I don't love, but it doesn't like bother me, bother me, is uh a little bit of lettuce on a sandwich. I'll eat a salad, I'll eat lettuce by itself, no dressing, no anything. But you put it on my fucking sandwich, and I immediately get upset.
SPEAKER_01:I hate soggy tomatoes on your sandwich.
SPEAKER_00:That that irritates me.
SPEAKER_03:I thought the lettuce is like the barrier between the soggy tomato and the other items.
SPEAKER_01:I think the lettuce makes it uh it makes it uh but it gives you that crunch, right?
SPEAKER_00:So it's just it it's like the perfect thing for me because I don't have like all the food restriction that a lot of people do. Like they, you know, like I'm sure like when you go to restaurants, you mainly get dinosaur-shaped chicken meat.
SPEAKER_03:Chicken tendies is what I get. Dipping sauce, ranch. Yeah, I like the celery with the ranch, so I like chewing on cartilage, so I get the bone and meat.
SPEAKER_00:So, yeah, if if you're not that like picky about what you like, uh you're gonna try some wild ass shit that you're gonna be like, oh my god, I fucking love capers.
SPEAKER_03:You gotta start that same scenario except for like phone book roulette, and you just go to restaurants in the phone book or whatever, and I guess they don't do phone books anymore, and just pick one and go there. Try to not repeat a restaurant at all for a month during your lunch breaks. I've tried it, it's very difficult.
SPEAKER_00:It is difficult.
SPEAKER_03:And if you don't have a wide range of foods you like, it makes itself even more difficult. Like right. But I found a Jamaican restaurant in Oak Creek or South Milwaukee. Shit was bomb. Yeah, it'll be closed in like two weeks. It was closed. Yeah, you're like the only one who went there. Pretty much. But it was like going, it was like going to a like you know the buffets at all inclusives where they have that chicken and Jamaican rice and like the whole thing. It was like, and it was in the styrofoam tin. It was great, dude. Yeah, I went there like three times and then yeah, they closed. Well, okay, well, and it did always they're like, hey, uh hi, uh, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00:I'd like to get some food. Like, oh, okay, yeah, sure. All right. Yeah, I'm sure they just went back to being a food truck. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:But anyways, yeah, man. Well, yeah, where were we going out, dude? Talking about how it costs a bunch of money and it's a bunch of effort. See, my thing about going out is like there's a sacrifice involved, right? Because you you have to take time away from other things to go do this thing. And so then I get all ridiculous on planning. I want to have everything just right because when I'm there, I don't want to have to be like, oh, we should run over to Walmart and get a pack of smokes or whatever the hell you might need. So I like to get it all prepared. But uh and I was starting to think like, you know, all this money you spend, you gotta realize where all this money's going. And then I just started to think about how expensive everything is. When you go out to eat, yeah. Well, like anything.
SPEAKER_01:When everything's being tipped.
SPEAKER_03:That too. Like you talked about the flip the tip thing. That kind of faded away a little, I feel like. You know, people revolted on that one.
SPEAKER_01:I just started ordering um delivery recently lately, a lot more than I usually did. And it seems like every rest or every place that I go to that has a delivery service, like you know, normal dominoes or something, whatever the fuck it is, they outsource it to someone else. Yeah. What the fuck's up with that? It's all DoorDash. And I I actually got for the first time in probably a year, I got Pizza Hut and they outsourced it to somewhere, and they called me on the phone saying, Your food is left. I live in an apartment building. Your food is left in the mailroom. Come down and get it. I'm like, Great, I'll be down in a second. Great, stuck in an elevator. I I'll be down in a second. Came down there, no food. I have three buildings that look exactly the same as mine. I went to every single one. Maybe they I figured maybe they went to the wrong one. Was not there. Called up Pete's Hut, told them the story. They had to remake it and re-deliver it. And who did they send to redeliver it? Same guy. Not the same guy, but another outsource company. And this time, yes, I got it. But it just doesn't make sense that I mean, how much money are they saving or making by outsourcing it? Thousands. They're saving thousands. Seriously? You gotta hold an employee to just drive? Yeah, but you're paying that employee an hourly wage where you're paying this person a certain percentage to deliver.
SPEAKER_03:No, you're paying it as the receiver of the goods. When you order it, you're paying that. Remember when they're like delivery fee is not a tip paid to the driver. Well, where did that go before? Went towards the guy's hourly wage. When he wasn't driving, what was he doing? Smoking cigarettes in the back for delivery.
SPEAKER_01:I do remember when I check out at so-called Pizza Hut, there is a delivery cost, which is three to four dollars. They just give that to But that's a lot if you cumulate all the deliveries that you get. So basically they're getting rid of that and then also giving the percentage of the delivery to another outsourced company where they don't even. And then if something fucking happens like this, now they have to pay for all the food because I have no idea where that food is. I text that guy like 16 times. I don't know, man. It is all outsourced. He actually texted me the next day saying, sorry, man, I had the wrong house. Your pizza was delicious.
SPEAKER_00:I was laughing my ass off. I I was listening to a comedian talking about that, that he lives kind of on the outskirts of town, and he has a real problem with uh with like Uber Eats and stuff. Yeah. Like he was like, it gets to me cold, like they always get lost, it's hard to find, nobody wants to take the delivery, so sits there.
SPEAKER_03:I've sat in the wing stop waiting for my food and watch delivery drivers just cancel and walk away. And then another guy will come in and be like, I'm here to pick up Steve's food. What do you mean, cancel and look like? Well, they'll be like, hi, I'm here for Steve's food. And the people at the counter will be like, it'll be five minutes. And the DoorDash person will look at their phone and be like, wait around for a minute or two, and then they'll say, Fuck that, and they'll go on their phone and they'll cancel it and they'll walk out. Seriously. And then another DoorDash person will walk in and they'll say, I'm here for Steve's food. And the lady at the counter will be like, it'll be five minutes, and that person will look at their phone and be like, Fuck that, I'm not waiting. Because they only get paid as they're delivering, so they'll be like, I'll just go outside and get a different delivery pickup. And then eventually the person will come in and grab it and take it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so this comedian was talking about he signed up to be a DoorDash delivery driver, and he only picks up his own food so he can get paid on the ride home.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:I'm like, that's actually fucking brilliant.
SPEAKER_03:You're gonna go get it, you might as well be the delivery driver. You have to go through all the steps becoming a uh delivery driver.
SPEAKER_00:Are you alive? Shaq.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that's about it, man. Like for driving your car to be an Uber driver, you gotta take pictures of your car and it's gotta be like a you know, 2020 or newer and that kind of shit. Not not for this.
SPEAKER_01:I'm pretty sure you need a lot more than that, but go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:So I don't I don't I don't order any Uber Eats or DoorDash or any of that.
SPEAKER_03:If you go to a certain place, but like when we ordered delivery a couple weeks ago, it wasn't a Wingstop employee delivering. Yeah, they make Door.
SPEAKER_00:It was like DoorDash or something else. So I don't order on that shit. And one time me and my brother were working in this really, really unfamiliar area, and it was very it was an area, let's just put it like I wouldn't want to go pick up the food at. So my brother's like, I'll just door dash some shit. So we door dash uh this uh soul food restaurant wait what soul food soul soul food.
SPEAKER_01:Soul food. So so describe soul food to so I uh our audience understands what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00:So my lunch that day, and I'll never forget it because it was some of the best food I ever ate, was shrimp beans, rice, shrimp and grits, um, which is a staple. If I see it on a menu somewhere, I I usually try to get it. I don't rely on DoorDash drivers to bring me their favorite meal. So um Yeah, there's an option to click give me your favorite entree. But uh the guy the guy comes and brings it, and he's in this fucking beater ass car. We're in a relatively shitty neighborhood. You know, he gets out of the car, he double parks somebody in on a busy road, leaves the car running, fucking door wide open, brings the food up, and uh my brother shows me on the app and it says like so-and-so is here on a blue bicycle with your food. And uh I'm like, that's fucking crazy. It says that he's driving a bicycle. He's like, Yeah, that's he goes, that is how my app tells me my foods get delivered all the time in West Dallas. He goes, uh, that's the way to get around when you don't have car insurance. Oh, you just say you're delivering, you you take your motor transportation as a bicycle. They don't make you be insured on a bike.
SPEAKER_02:That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:And uh yeah, so my brother who you know That's crazy, dude. My brother who door dashes shit every day so he can complain about how broke he is, um uh says that more than half of his delivery drivers are stated as being on bicycle. How often do you guys order Chinese delivery?
SPEAKER_03:Uh once a month on a Sunday, maybe twice a month. Tony that is the Huang Chi guy who ordered who runs it. Yeah, deliveries.
SPEAKER_01:We get it once a month and I pick it up. Okay, so you guys never experienced the dilemmas that I've experienced through Chinese ordering. No, I don't know what a dilemma in the head.
SPEAKER_00:If you look at you and they're trying to get some young boy, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Young Chia Ko. Um, so every single time I order Chinese food, I I I always try to go to a different one. I don't know why, but I always want to elaborate on my I don't know of any good ones out by you. There is a lot. I know there are a lot of them, but I don't think any good. But every single time you go to the a different one, they have the exact same format on ordering online. The exact same checkout, the exact same um website. It's almost like the same website. The Beyond Menu website. Yeah. And it's the exact exact same thing. And every single time, and I never learn from my mistakes, like you guys know on this podcast, I use my credit card and I order online through whatever that fucking thing is. It's always the same fucking thing. And every single time, two days later, I have crazy charges from different states in the United States, and I have to cancel my card and get re-established a new card.
SPEAKER_03:So I mean it took me a lot. I had that with Beyond Menu too, actually. I think that's the one you're talking about because that's the one that Chinese restaurants do.
SPEAKER_01:So when you when you look at it, what color? What's the established color? I don't remember. It's like an orangey red.
SPEAKER_03:Is it light blue? No, it's orangey red. It's the one I'm I don't know which one you're talking about. I've had that same experience.
SPEAKER_01:Every fucking time.
SPEAKER_03:But now I own I don't use I use this thing uh with my credit card that it creates a fake number for every transaction. That's cool. So they keep it.
SPEAKER_01:I don't I'm not that cool.
SPEAKER_03:I'm not that smart to do that. So it's like clicking a box.
SPEAKER_01:Now if I uh because I'm never picking my up my own Chinese food. That's like a staple, and that's a rule. When you get Chinese food, you always gotta have it delivered.
SPEAKER_03:No, you pick it up totally pick it up.
SPEAKER_01:If you pick it up, it doesn't taste.
SPEAKER_03:Do you know how you find a good Chinese restaurant? How? You go to it, and if there's any other white people in there, yep, that's what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01:Let's see, let's say turn, turn it. Yep.
SPEAKER_03:If there's any other white people in there, it's not for you. You gotta find the real Chinese restaurant.
SPEAKER_01:It tastes different when it's delivered.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I don't know how that tastes. You can get Chinese food delivered and be like, put it on the stoop when you bring it, and then you can go mow the lawn and you can go take a shower after because you forgot you ordered Chinese food, and then you can start watching the football game and not remember until halftime that you have Chinese food on the stoop, and you will rip open to that plastic bag and break the staples on the paper bag. Staples, yeah. And you will go into why are they always staples? You will go into that white container of white paper. No, it's it's a giant and it will be steaming hot. You will grab that black container with the white cover, clear cover on it out of there, and it'll be so hot, you'll burn the bottom of your fingers and have to put it on the counter as fast as possible because the tips of your fingers are burning off. And it's been two hours. How do they keep it so hot?
SPEAKER_00:That's because it's still on fire when they put it in.
SPEAKER_03:The liquid inside of Chinese. Chinese food meals has got to be have such a high boiling temperature and get to be like 500 degrees before it boils over. And so then your food just sits in that juice. I bet they don't even cook the meat in it. They just put the juice down, put everything in there, and it cooks while they deliver it. It's like a hot pot. I mean, these Chinese hold on, these Chinese places even stack it up. Well, they'll put cardboard in between the food, and that just even more packs in the heat and keeps it hot.
SPEAKER_01:Well, the thing about Chinese food, there's a okay. Before I finish my last what I was gonna say, I now that the only other time I order Chinese food is if it's Uber Eats, because now I don't get my card stolen. But what you were talking about is Chinese food and always being hot and this and that. Uh for me, if I take the Chinese food out of the container and put it on a plate, it immediately gets frozen. It's ice cold. It's like ice cold. Your plate.
SPEAKER_03:You have to eat it out of that container. Out of the container. And if you use a metal fork, it tastes like shit. You gotta use the little tiny plastic fork that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, no, yeah, yeah, you can do that too, but I I go back. I'm allowed to be.
SPEAKER_03:These forks are so cheap, you pick up a scoop of rice, and the fork looks like it's going to flex and snap in half.
SPEAKER_01:I use chopsticks. I have 6,000 pairs of because I don't I don't use chopsticks that you put in the um uh dishwasher and reuse. I like to take the wood ones and I I absorb the soy sauce in the chopstick first, let it sit in there for like 30 seconds, and then I'll use that the entire the entirety of eating my Chinese food. It makes it in try this, it makes it so much better to have the soy sauce infused into the skewer. Into the chopstick into the chop wooden has to be a you can't get those chopsticks that that you break apart and they they they you know they give you a sliver every time you try to bite into them. You gotta get good uh sanded ones that have a rounded edge. Hmm. The ones you kind of get at you're paying for old world craftsmanship on your fucking chopsticks. Yeah, like I said, I have six. If you need to borrow a couple hundred, I got them. I have six thousand of them. Interesting. Definitely probably a lot less now, but I've always got a new pair every time I throw them away because you can never use them again.
SPEAKER_00:So are you the only one who uses chopsticks again? No one that's able to use it. Yeah, don't I and then try to explain to the kids how you're authentic Asian.
SPEAKER_01:I tried to show them how to use them, and no, no one can do it like I can. I can pick up a giant spoonful of rice with chopsticks. Interesting. That is talent. Try it.
SPEAKER_03:Try it, try it without sticky rice. I won't go to a Chinese restaurant without you after hearing this. Why? Why? I don't even know if I'd take a trip to any Asian country with now that I know.
SPEAKER_00:Because I use chopsticks.
SPEAKER_03:I you will show me now.
SPEAKER_00:I always ask them, can I have a white person utensil? Oh, you want the chopsticks that have okay, a fork?
SPEAKER_01:You want the chopsticks that are made for Americans where they put a rubber band around the outer uh thing, and they they you open and close them just by pinging them?
SPEAKER_00:Why not? You have to the Americans invented something a little bit better. I don't think they're called forks.
SPEAKER_03:I do not believe Americans invented forks. Oh, absolutely. They don't that would mean that according to our history books, that prior to 1776 there were no forks.
SPEAKER_00:No, they use their hands.
SPEAKER_01:No, no way, dude. They use a utensil, but not a so-called fork.
SPEAKER_00:No, you so this is this is what happened one day in his Amish hut, Jebediah Ulysses Fork took a spoon and then he cut little notches in it so he could stab shit with it. So spoon became before fork? Yeah. Okay, all right. Well no natural spoons. Come on, everybody had spoons. But forks, man, that that got that was that was created out of necessity. No.
SPEAKER_01:I'm just gonna tell you this last thing before I shut out is take your chopsticks. Maybe you don't use them. You should fucking change your ways and soak them in soy. Soak them in soy for 30 seconds. You have to soak them for 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_03:You're bringing your own soy to these things.
SPEAKER_01:Every time you eat something with that chopstick, even though it's not doesn't have soy sauce in it, because soy sauce is like one of the best fucking things ever made, it will taste way better.
SPEAKER_03:Have you ever seen how they make soy sauce?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, probably not a good thing.
SPEAKER_03:I'm you might like it. Do you know it then? Yeah, you should look it up one time. Tell me. No, I'm not gonna spoil this for you. Tell the whole audience.
SPEAKER_01:Come on. Not doing it. Well, they did they squeeze a fucking octopus and take his jizz out of his butt and put salt in there.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's definitely from soybeans. Because, you know, the ink from the Yeah, where were we though in your in your story sucked?
SPEAKER_03:I was just trying to create one, but I'm with the main theme of the idea is that you gotta go out and enjoy yourself. And I'm trying myself personally to not think so much about how I'm spending all this energy and money and just try to enjoy it while I'm out there and almost think of it as I'm giving a gift to the world. I'm out, I'm serving this guy's serving me, I'm giving him coin, he's serving me, I'm giving them coin, giving them the energy.
SPEAKER_00:You know, the thing is, is every time you go out, it takes a a hundred people to make your night happy.
SPEAKER_03:I did I do start to think of this now.
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, at the same time in a parallel universe, your wife's at home making a box of macaroni and cheese for her and the daughter. Yeah. In a different parallel world, a different, different state, usually.
SPEAKER_01:That's good.
SPEAKER_03:Top shelf stories. Thanks for tuning in. We're here every Tuesday for you guys. We release a podcast. Try to tune in, tell your friends. Don't forget to tip your waitress. Tip your waitresses.
