The topic for this episode of Check Please! is malaise. ma·laise /məˈlāz,məˈlez/ noun * a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify. We chat about the things we like to eat when we feel like sickly Victorian orphans, revisit my freaky alternative health childhood, analyze the plot of Safe (1995) starring Julianne Moore, and interview Taipei author Tao Lin about his low Vitamin A diet, the leeches he ordered in the mail, the eczema on his...

Welcome back to Check Please! The word of the day is: nostalgia. We went to the mall to get an Auntie Anne’s soft pretzel and inhale the enthralling scent of Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce in the name of research. We talked about when curling your hair and going to Sprinkles Cupcakes was the most en vogue thing to do in middle school on your birthday. We made playlists harkening back to our adolescent years (mine even includes an actual cover image I took to post on Tumblr featuring a leaf of...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bellacastillo.substack.com In this episode, we try Rose Delights, discuss if splitting a burger is the ultimate act of love, and evaluate the rituals in our lives, The Sacrifice (1986), Harriet the Spy (1996) & more.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bellacastillo.substack.com In this episode, we asked listeners to call our hotline with matters of the heart and stomach, and the phone was ringing off the hook! We resolved domestic squabbles over whose job it is to plunge the toilet, laid out the perfect recipe for a home-cooked dinner date, and settled on the only successful way for a man to attract a partner on Instagram.

In this episode of Check Please! Josh and I are running our mouths about all the latest culinary trends and debuting a segment called Hot & Ready in which we rattle off a few of our hottest food takes. If you’ve been hoping and praying to hear my controversial thoughts on tiramisù, the light of god has shined upon you today. We also did a little Q&A to really shed some light on the inner workings of our gorgeous, twisted brains, though the questions may have been more telling than the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit bellacastillo.substack.com Listen now | In this episode, we review Burnt (2015) and The Taste of Things (2023) and chat about whether the Michelin Guide is racist, times we've cried at the movies and Juliette Binoche's **** **** ***.

In this episode, we chat about everything we love and hate about restaurants (from the perspective of patrons — working in the industry is a whole different episode), mourn the loss of Sweet Tomatoes, discover the last-standing Lone Star Steakhouse in the world, and review the Joe’s Crab Shack happy hour menu. And yes…there is the sound of the leaf blower at the end. Forgive us. We’re still working out the kinks. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other...