⚠️Spoilers inside

I need to start this week with a confession, and then a complaint, and they're about the same thing.

You might have already noticed but I have a new video out. 

It's a cooking battle, and my opponent was Niko Omilana. 

That's a big deal, by the way. 

As far as I'm aware, Niko barely turns up on anyone's channel outside the Beta Squad, so having him on mine is something I'm grateful for. I hope he had as good a day as I did. Well. Nearly as good a day.

Because I'm about to tell you how it ended. 

If you haven't watched it yet, this is your warning: stop here, go and watch it, and come back. 

I mean it. Spoilers below 👇

Watch: YouTuber Cooking Battle ft. Niko Omilana

Also this week: a gap in the food market I think someone needs to fill, a sneak look at a video I'm slightly regretting the format of, and your verdict on frozen yogurt, which was emphatic.

Spoilers below: Final warning!

…

…

I lost 😐

I lost, and I want it on the record that it's a disgrace.

Let me set the scene…

Niko spent a good chunk of the build-up telling everyone he couldn't really cook. 

Classic sandbagging. Meanwhile I went in confident, because if there is one thing on this earth I know how to make, it's a full English. A full English is basically my native language.

The problem was everything that wasn't me. 

The ingredients weren't what I'd have chosen. 

I was making scrambled eggs with quail eggs, which cook so fast they go from raw to over in about the time it takes to blink. They weren't burnt, exactly, but they were done long before I was ready for them to be done.

Then came the toast, which should be the easiest part of any breakfast. There was no toaster. So I had to grill the bread, and to grill the bread I had to get the oven into grill mode, and I could not for the life of me work out how to get the oven into grill mode. You can probably picture how that went. The whole thing progressively turned into a mess, and I could feel it happening in real time.

And then there was the judge. Bradley, who, I'd like to point out, is very close with Niko from previous videos. Make of that what you will 😂

In the video he describes himself as a "five-star Michelin judge," which is impressive, given Michelin only goes up to three. That's two more stars than Marco Pierre White ever had, so I'm not sure I believe him. 

I'm especially not sure, given he flat out refused to eat my very cooked food. 

It’s probably not at all obvious to you but I'm gutted, and I'm wounded. 

Jokes aside, it was one of the most fun videos I've made in a while. Niko is hilarious and he was great in it. 

If you haven't watched it, I've told you how it ends, so you've no excuse now. 

Click here to watch me lose.

I've been trying to sort myself out lately. 

It's been a long summer, and when I was in America I ate like a little piggy. 

So I'm in a bit of a reset phase, which means I've been ordering a lot from The Salad Project.

It's good. I want to be fair to it. 

I love the pulled chicken, they do nice potatoes, and there's some other great stuff on there. 

But it feels too healthy (stay with me 😂)

They take all the good bits and then bury them under an absolute mountain of veg. 

I don't want to sound like a twelve-year-old who only eats dino nuggets, and I'm not that guy. 

But there has to be a middle ground.

And this is where I think there's a genuine gap in the market. 

I want a place that sells simple, high-protein, gym-focused food that tastes amazing. 

Chicken and rice, chicken and potato, beef and potato. 

You'd get a few variations: barbecue chicken, maybe a proper steak with a bit of peppercorn sauce on the side. You'll know by now that peppercorn sauce makes anything better.

I know meal prep companies are a thing but that’s not what I mean here. I don’t want a sad plastic tub that I have to microwave. 

I’m talking about GREAT food, made by chefs, that costs a reasonable amount and turns up on a delivery app.

Maybe that's a bit out of touch. I don't care, because I still haven't found the perfect place to order from when I'm being good. 

Right now it's basically Nando's or The Salad Project, and one of those is a bit too much salad. If you know somewhere that does exactly this, tell me. 

If you're about to open one, you've got your first customer.

I've just been filming a video on themed restaurants, and I went to five or six of them.

And I'll be honest with you, I'm slightly regretting putting them all into one video. Every single one of them was interesting enough that it could have been its own episode. I absolutely loved making it. It should be out in a couple of weeks, and I've got a strong feeling there'll need to be a part two.

More broadly, there's a lot of travelling coming up and some mad videos in the pipeline. The comments on recent ones have been brilliant too, so thank you.

 A lot of the new restaurants I've been to lately are in those upcoming videos, so I'm keeping my mouth shut on them for now. You'll see them soon.

Last time, I asked you to educate me. 

Frozen yogurt is everywhere at the moment, Yochi has people queuing round the block, and I couldn't understand why. 

I asked the froyo faithful to change my mind.

You lot voted, and it was not the defence I was told to expect:

🍦 It's fine. It's cold yogurt. Everyone needs to calm down: 38.2%
🍦 Overrated, give me an ice cream every time: 23.6%
🍦 Never understood it, never will: 21.7%
🍦 Sensational, you're missing out: 16.6%

So more than four in five of you are somewhere between "it's fine" and "absolutely not." 

The faithful are outnumbered. I feel very seen.

The case against came in hard. The most common argument by a mile was this: froyo gets sold as the healthy option, and then everyone buries it under brownies, sauce and cookie dough. 

Andrew put it: it's "seen as the healthy option, before proceeding to load it with a monstrosity of toppings and sauces." At that point, several of you said, just have the ice cream.

Bethany compared the Yochi queues to the Oasis ticket release, and I think she might be right. Her case was pretty thorough. It's pay-by-weight, so it's a rip-off if you're hungry. The yogurt itself is bland, so you're only tasting the toppings. And you can't tell her it's healthier than a 99 drowned in sauce. Bethany, I relate to every word.

Velvet had a concern I hadn't even considered. The toppings sit out with no covers and no screen, which leaves you, in her words, with "cookie dough with a side of snot." Her alternative is to buy froyo from M&S, pick your own toppings that nobody has breathed on, and avoid "a £30 bowl of cold slop." That's practical, and frankly a little haunting.

Milan: "You're just a sh*t Mr Whippy! A sh*t Mr Whippy!" He was then thoughtful enough to add, "Please note I am referring to the froyo and not you, Cal." Appreciated, Milan.

Noémie, the Frenchie, voted "it's fine" and then changed her mind halfway through her own reply: "I'm going to change my vote, it's overrated and I'd rather have ice cream 😹" That's a live U-turn, in writing, which I've never seen before.

And Poppy revealed she can't stand yogurt full stop. Apparently it's because she convinced herself as a child that the live cultures were parasites. That's never leaving my head now. Thanks, Poppy.

But the defenders deserved a hearing, and one of them did get through to me…

Lily explained that Yochi is massive in Australia because it's become a "third space" for young people. It's open late, you decide how much you spend, the menu changes with the seasons, and it's somewhere to go that isn't a pub or a restaurant. Maybe the hype was just having somewhere to go with your mates. 

Lauren from Melbourne has been to heaps of froyo places and swears Yochi is as good as the queues suggest. 

Victoria urged me to go and try it myself. And one reader simply told me it's a must for the channel because the video "will do numbers," which might be the most persuasive argument of the lot.

A few more replies that made me laugh: 

"Nando's been doing frozen yoghurt for years and it's sh*te. 

“I'm not four years old”

And one American used the entire froyo debate to campaign for Wisconsin frozen custard instead. Noted.

So, the verdict. 

The people have spoken, and the people mostly agree with me: it's fine, it's cold yogurt, and everyone needs to calm down. 

But Lily's point stuck with me, so I'll keep a little bit of an open mind. 

The fifteen-minute queue limit still applies.

It might have read like I’ve accepted the result from the cooking battle. 

I have not accepted the result.

I’m calling a retrial, exclusive to this newsletter, and you lot are the jury.

Below are both breakfasts, exactly as they were served. 

Study the evidence, take your time, and vote with your conscience:

If the newsletter overturns the result, I’m screenshotting it and sending it straight to Niko. 

If it doesn’t, we never speak of this again. 

Results next week.

And that's Issue 11.

Go and watch me get robbed by Niko and Bradley here. 

Send me your gym food spots. 

And if you've got thoughts on themed restaurants, save them, because you'll need them in a couple of weeks.

See you next time! 

Cal 🥒

No Pickles · Issue 11 · by the numbers

Stamps awarded to date: 4 (holding)

Cooking battles lost to a man who said he couldn't cook: 1 (fuming)

Toasters provided for a full English: 0

Ovens successfully set to grill mode: 0

Gaps in the gym food market I'm begging someone to fill: 1

Themed restaurants squeezed into a single video: 5 or 6 (part two incoming)

Readers who changed their vote mid-email: 1 (Noémie, legend)

Childhood yogurt parasite theories received: 1 (Poppy, I'm worried)