A Distinguished Gentlemans Guide to Dining.

Fish and Grits 24/7

2012-01-14T13:54:00.000-08:00

Friday January 6th 2012

Fish and Grits 24/7, 8th and Division, Nashville, TN

My apologies, it has been quite some time since my last entry. Mediocrity has infected the Nashville restaurant scene in a way I wouldn’t wish upon the worst of them. With the exception of El Tapatio the city is completely devoid of exciting places to eat. Even the really bad restaurants lack any aspect of humor. You’re not like “Oh my god that was so ridiculously shitty!”, its more like, “Yeah that wasn’t too good.” There just isn’t any passion on either end of the spectrum. Over time this ground down my motivation to write the blog, basically there just wasn’t anything to say. A few places popped up in my travels that would have been nice to write about (Best Sandwiches in Brussels, Grimaldi’s Pizza in Brooklyn, Time Out in Chapel Hill), but it didn’t occur to me to document the moment because I was so out of the routine. Luckily this absence of inspiration was recently broken by the somewhat new restaurant Fish and Grits 24/7.

After 9PM, Taco Bell is basically your only option in Nashville, which is why the 24/7 under the Fish and Grits really caught my eye. There were a few occasions, where without luck, I attempted to persuade people to drive over there and get something to eat. But why, in Nashville, would you want to drive across town to go to a restaurant? Statistically it would be a complete waste of time and money. So it took a few months before I was able to get inside. I was at Frugal MacDoogal, the discount liquor warehouse across the street, buying a six pack of German beer, eyeing the restaurant through the window.

“You ever checked out the Fish and Grits place across the street?”, I asked the cashier.

“You know I never have,” He responded, “but I’ve actually heard good things.”… Did you catch that? It’s a direct quote and he said ‘actually’, as in it was surprising to him that someone would say good things about a restaurant in town. I picked up on it instantly and decided now was the time, I was right there, I had the means, and for the first time in a while, the motivation.

It was more of a sit down place than I had thought it would be, I was expecting something more along the lines of the Fry Corner in Wilmington, Delaware (sadly visited in the pre-blog days), a grease soaked, standing space only, sharpie on notebook paper menu type of restaurant, ready to be robbed at gunpoint at any moment. Instead they boasted a rather large dining room in which the waitress flailed about manically despite having only one table occupied.

“Can I order something to go?”, I asked. She scurried up to the counter and began explaining the menu to me, pointing out their specialties, making recommendations. Having come to a decision I placed my order for the fried tilapia with cheese grits.

“Ok honey,” She said “You want that with the eggs and home fries?” Woah! Hold up! This took me back quite a bit, it was 8pm, I came in wanting what it said on the sign outside; fish and grits, I wasn’t trying to get involved in breakfast, not at that time.

“That’s what it comes with?” I asked.

“Yeah, but you could substitute another two sides if you’d like.” Although it’s regrettable, I ended up going with the fries and cole slaw. I hadn’t been expecting the offer of eggs and home fries and was too caught off guard to realize that it would have been the proper way to go. I took a seat by the door and waited while my order was put in.

“Oh Girls! Girls, this is Camile!”, the waitress shouted to the lone table of college girls in the other room when the restaurants unnecessary second waitress, Camile, came in the door. Apparently they had discussed Camile earlier in the visit, as when Camile went over to the table for a round of handshakes and introductions, the girls told her, ‘we’ve heard a lot about you.’ Camile seemed unphased by this greeting and exhaustedly shuffled off into the buildings nether regions.

This was about the time they decided to play the juke box. “What should I play? What should play?” the one girl repeated. “Meatloaf!”, one of her friends yelled, to which she shrugged, seeming unconvinced. “Take Me Home Tonight. Eddie Money.”, another one yelled in a tone so assertive it left the song no option but to be played. Our waitresses mouth dropped open over the table she was wiping off at the first note in the song and hung there agape over the table for longer than expected. At first I thought she was shocked at the ladies choice of song, then I considered that judging by the current attendance, she could have been amazed that the juke box was simply being played at all, it could have been the first time. Then I realized that the homeless guy who snuck in the door next to me had grabbed a handful of mints off the counter and disappeared back into the night. She ran defensively towards the door swatting her hands at the air and the idea of the theft, scowling through the window in the direction of the getaway.

Eventually my food was done and she called me to the counter where she began to whisper in my ear the money saving strategy she had taken with my meal, “Here’s what I did, we went ahead and made it into a sandwich for you, just because it’s a little cheaper that way. Go ahead, take a look ok?”. She quickly swung the Styrofoam box open, just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of the fried tilapia and bed of fries.

“Looks awesome.” I told her

“And since you’re a paying customer,” She said with an added aggravated laugh and a glance out the window, “I can give you some of these.” She put a generous portion of mints into my bag. “You gotta come back and see us again sometime now you hear?” I agreed, because even though I hadn’t tasted the food yet, quite a bit had happened in the 8 or so minutes I’d been inside the place. This is bleak, but it was sincerely one of the more eventful experiences I’ve had in Nashville. “Oh, it gets crazy in here around 3am.” She confessed to me.

“It’s crazy in here right now.” I told her.

“I had some customers once who told me they read about the place on Yelp and whoever had reviewed it was talking about the crazy woman who was running all over the restaurant pretending to be the waitress, and I was like, ‘Hey! That’s me!’”. I left pleased. Even without a single taste of the food I knew it had to be one of the best restaurants in Nashville. No other place has even come close to achieving this type of character, at least in a positive manner.

Back at home I eagerly cracked open the box and peered over the contents excitedly. This is when the confusion began to set in. I remembered back to what I had originally ordered; fried tilapia with cheese grits, and then I recalled what she told me I was getting; ‘we made it into a sandwich for you.’. Equations collided in my brain, none of this added up. First of all, the grits could not be located. I suspected them to be hiding under the fish, but there were only fries down there. After it was determined that no grits were included in the meal, I began to realize that there was nothing resembling a sandwich anywhere in this box either. There were the fixings for a sandwich; lettuce, tomato, onion, and fish, but not only were they not arranged together as a sandwich, there was no bread in which they could be encased. Although I was sad I wouldn’t be eating grits, because I had really been looking forward to them, and although I was wishing I had just accepted the eggs and home fries, the incompleteness of my meal and the mental energy that I, and also the waitress presumably, put into deciphering it made me like the place even more. The food I did get was decent, which means it was above average for Nashville, but the environment was truly special.

Di Fara Pizza

2010-11-30T15:37:00.000-08:00

Saturday November 27^th 2010

Di Fara Pizza, 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn, NY

I’ve said it before that New York is the only city in America where you can get a decent pizza. Sure there might be the occasional place hidden away in some other town (but definitely not Chicago) where they’ve got an acceptable one, but the ratio of consistency reigns far higher than anywhere else in the city of New York. In all my other visits to the city I’ve sustained myself on affordable slices from a variety of pizza joints within a convenient proximity to where I was hanging out, places that despite being far superior to anyplace I’d go in Providence or Philly or where ever, still were not even close to the best for New York. There’s been a few places I’d heard the folklore of, legendary, near mythical New York pizza places, but few had tales as impressive as Di Fara’s. Di Fara’s, as I’d heard the story, was a Brooklyn pizza joint run by this one guy who has worked there every day for like sixty years or something, and he’s the only one who makes the pizzas. He’ll have an assistant to take care of all the bullshit like stocking the soda cooler and sweeping the place up, just so all of his attention is concentrated solely on the pies, each of which is made entirely to order, taking an hour plus to complete.

Luckily the northbound traffic wasn’t as bad as the southbound and the Philly contingent arrived before we did, and they arrived just in time, placing the last order before Di Fara’s assistant locked the door. Apparently everyday at 4pm they lock the doors for a few hours to catch up on orders. We got there about a half hour later and mimed to the other half of our group through the windows, until when the time was right the assistant unlocked the doors, unleashing a trapped horde of people who had been forced to stand around waiting inside post meal. Stealthily, we swam upstream through the exodus crowd and got inside undetected. I was able to catch this glimpse of the owner taking a pie out of the oven, sprinkling a handful of freshly grated parmesan, and with a barbers finesse trim his handheld bouquet of basil with a scissors over the top. Despite the surly city crowds that congested his counter area waiting impatiently for their food, despite the state of disrepair they’d left his dining room in, and the gusts of cold air they brought inside with their selfish desires to leave, he remained focused, working very slowly, not allowing his natural pace to be compromised by the increasing demands and pressures. He strode between the oven and his prep area with a geriatric caution, balancing steaming pizzas at varying degrees of doneness on his paddle (some with crusts approaching the char-zone), almost oblivious to the wild crowd that nearly threatened to cross over onto his side. This is one of the only scenes I’ve witnessed that I would feel comfortable using the word ‘Zen’ to describe. I got the feeling that even if no one was coming to his restaurant and ordering the pizzas that he’d still just make them all day anyways, it just so happened that there were other people around paying him money. This is clearly his calling.

After what we estimated to be an hour and a half wait (which I came excited about, and proved to be fun), the pizza was born. Party Tom retrieved it from the counter and sort of plunked it on our table in which I felt was a rather disrespectful and negligent manner for something that had been so delicately and lovingly crafted. Could we go back in time, I would have gotten it from the counter, supported the box from each corner as I carried it to the table, laying it down like an infant child, peeling the lid back slowly, causing a shroud of steam to obscure the jewel bespectacled pie, allowing it to fade into focus in a dreamlike fashion as the mist dissipated, but hey, it didn’t work out that way. So in an unceremonious style we each separated a slice and began to eat. A silence befell the table.

The crust was quite thin, crunchy but not overdone, it had a slight stretch, provided a good chew, and had a nice sour tinge to it. The sauce was of the pulverized tomato variety, containing large tomato chunks, very simple and nice. The mozzarella cheese was portioned out not in a modest or skimpy way, but definitely wasn’t overindulgent. That combined with the dusting of parmesan provided ample cheese flavor. This wasn’t a pizza that relied solely on the cheese, it was entirely about all the ingredients combining to form one thing, all aspects were as important. Of course everyone just sat around the table saying things like “Hmmm…yeah this is good.”, but you could tell everyone knew they should be saying something more, its just that no one could tell what. You could give someone these very same ingredients, and they’d have trouble replicating it, there is a simplistic genius at work that has been perfected over decades of near constant practice that I don’t know could be matched.

Not to bring things down, but before you go to get a pizza here, be warned that one large, yet pretty regular sized, pie is $28 dollars. Split between five people it was pretty affordable, but no one got filled up, we all just had a tasting, a wonderful tasting, but yes just a tasting. You’d really be dropping some cash here to walk out food coma style. While eating, I noticed at least two newspaper cut outs they had framed on the wall in which defenders of their prices were interviewed. The headline of one was “$4 for a slice too much? This man thinks not.” And it’s $5 a slice nowadays.

Gold Stone Noodle Restaurant

2010-11-25T11:32:00.000-08:00

Sunday November 21^st 2010

Gold Stone Noodle Restaurant, 226 Spadina Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

After successfully escaping the stiff interrogations and vehicle searching of Canada’s grumpy border patrol, just barely managing not to laugh at the torrent of “Eh’s” that, yes, actually spilled from their mouths like a country wide case of tourettes, we rolled into the Toronto night for a glimpse at the other side of the border. I’ve always been a firm believer that southern Ontario, the part that juts rudely between New York and Michigan, should really be a part of the U.S., I mean, they’re coming down awfully far there, if you look at a map, that should be ours. We should trade them Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and a part of northern Maine and call it a day. Sadly however, the Canadian’s have it and they put up Tim Horton’s and Future Shop’s wherever they could. My first purchase across enemy lines was what sunk it into my head that we really were in a different country, two tall cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon at the bar. It was loud, I couldn’t hear the guy too well, so I just handed him a 10. He gave me the cans, poked around at the cash register for a while and that was it, no change. Five Canadian dollars for a tall can of Pabst! And I hadn’t been ripped off, well clearly I had, but that was the real price. I’m sure some goofballs in NYC pay that and like it, but I guess that’s why I try not to go there.

Price wise, I was pretty soured on Canada, until when our show had ended and we were hitting the road around 1:30 AM, I turned left on Spadina Ave and noticed the plethora of Asian restaurants, most of which still seemed to be open. I hadn’t really eaten anything since John’s pancake spread that morning, and simply not being allowed to fill up on beer, I needed sustenance. The Gold Stone Noodle Restaurant, as you can see, is a pretty eye catching place, brightly lit, large glass windows, it was clearly open and very inviting.

Their menu was lengthy, containing more dishes than I cared to browse through, it was the mention of noodles in the restaurants name that had really caught my attention. All their soups and noodle dishes, contradicting my expectations, were priced appropriately, actually maybe even lower than they needed to be. What I settled on, deciding that option offered the most variety in a single bowl, was the wonton noodle soup with pork and duck.

This bowl, this one here, this bountiful gift of noodles, duck, pork, and shrimp filled wonton’s (which weren’t even mentioned in the description) was $6.95 Canadian, which is about the same as the U.S.. I started comparing my, albeit limited, knowledge of Canadian item prices, and realized what an amazing deal I had gotten. If you think of Pabst as a currency, which I suggest you don’t do for long, I was only paying 1 and 1/3^rd Pabsts for this amazing and completely filling bowl of food!

The broth, which I had several spoonfuls of first (the customary way to begin a bowl of soup, I think) had the flavor of rice and dark chicken meat, but was rather light and refreshing. The mass of noodles lurking at the bottom were not as I expected, thin, almost tough noodles of a dull orange color, which even with further submergence time in the warm broth refused to soften. Their flavor was strong, not able to be pinpointed, Val referred to them as “Gamey” which isn’t a word you hear thrown around in noodle speak too often.

Duck isn’t a meat I have a lot of experience with, which is part of the reason why I was excited about getting it, I wanted to give it another shot. I don’t want to say I don’t like it, but it definitely isn’t for me. Thick, oily, dense, slimy meat, cooked with the skin on, providing an extra wiggle on the way down. It tasted alright, but my attention was really consumed by the pork. The pork, which luckily resembled the bulk of the meat, was hard, compacted into flaking chunks, which peeled away in delicious layers. Sweet pig crystals, tangled up in the bowl.

Shrimp, yeah…I dunno, I never saw the big deal, sure I’ll have one, I guess. Honestly, if I knew there was gonna be shrimp in this, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it, but it actually took me a minute to notice they were in there. I popped a couple of the wrapped wonton’s, hoping they’d be filled with a slurry of sickly gray Asian mystery meat, felt satisfied enough, but after two when I went to look at how discolored the interior meat mixture was, there was just a baby shrimp all tucked away inside. I was indifferent.

I tried as best as I could, but I don’t think I made it even half way through the bowl, and overall I did like it, it was just way too much to handle. Shrimp, pork, duck, noodles, broth, woah, Canada, chill out! Toronto, based on this one experience, seems like a great city to eat in, but next time I’m gonna have to hit up the duty free shop on the way in, rock that BYOB style wherever I go.

Fat Mo's

2010-11-10T16:56:00.000-08:00

Tuesday November 9^th 2010

Fat Mo’s, 351 White Bridge PK and 2620 Franklin PK, Nashville, TN

Fat Mo’s (spelled here at the White Bridge location as one continuous word) is a Nashville area burger stand chain which can be seen furthering the congestion at clogged intersections around town. Two drive up windows, instead of easing cars through in half the time, attracts traffic from all directions, often times resulting in two cars facing head to head attempting to order and people leaning out through the passenger windows, jumbling up the whole parking lot. I almost always opt for the walk up window.

The White Bridge Ave location, in the heart of West Nashville, is the most convenient Fat Mo’s to my house and daily life, yet I always hear it spoken of negatively. Someone’s always saying that one sucks and that the one on 8^th Ave (aka Franklin Pike) is better. While driving about en route to the post office before a lengthy session in the EEG isolation booth at Vanderbilt, I found myself thinking of Mo, and unable to recall my last visit, swung by the one on White Bridge and picked up a Fat Mo with cheese.

What had gotten me thinking about Fat Mo’s again recently was this years Best of Nashville poll in the local arts paper, where (apparently clueless) readers vote on their favorite establishments in town. The Best Burger category was given to national chain Five Guys! I mean, yes there are a couple in Nashville, but theres a couple of those things everywhere at this point, and they are pretty decent, but I had imagined that the poll was supposed to feature, you know, specifically local businesses, like Fat Mo’s, which I figured would at least have been a runner up in that category. It was not.

Due to the oppressive sun which beat through the windows of the van in a seasonally uncharacteristic move, I consumed the burger rather hastily in the hotel next door’s parking lot and started to think maybe Mo’s didn’t really have a shot at runner up in that category after all. The burger had been crafted rather carelessly, it was kind of overdone, and with the condiments and accoutrements all huddled on one side, extremely hard to handle . I opened it up to take a picture of the inside, but no one would have wanted to see that, so I settled for the side shot, during which an unidentified juice leaked out onto the crotch of my pants. I chomped through the rest of it emotionlessly and continued on with my day.

A few hours later there I was, in the Vanderbilt isolation booth, insane cranial wire cap affixed to my head, doing a study on musical notation. My focus however lied on Fat Mo’s and the clumsy burger I had just eaten there. Thoughts ran through my head; Is the one on 8^th actually better? Does a national chain actually make the best burger in this city? And then I realized as the study attendant yelled at me for moving too much for the third time, that when this was all over, which hopefully was going to be real soon, I was to be paid $35. That Fat Mo with cheese was starting to wear off, the onset of hunger was creeping back in, was a side by side, a Mo to Mo comparison in order? I shrugged the thought away at first. You can’t go to Fat Mo’s twice in one day you filthy bastard! What an awful idea! Go home and make some food, save the $35. But then the other side spoke up. Hey, a side by side would be good for the blog. There isn’t really anything to eat at home anyways. I’m already like halfway to 8^th ave. What am I gonna do with this $35? Save it?

“I guess I’m really doing this.”, I thought to myself driving down 8^th Ave, pulling into the Mo’s lot, and walking through the cars up to the window. I ordered yet again, the Fat Mo with cheese, and then with all abandon for my recent earnings, some spicy fries, and something I’d seen their marquee advertising which held by attention, the fried pickle. The first thing I noticed (besides spicy being spelled spisy and onions onoins on the menu), was that it was taking a lot longer to get the food, which I think is a good thing. Everything is apparently made fresh to order here, which had startled me a bit at the White Bridge one, because the burger was ready in no time, I half expected it rare which made its dryness that much more surprising.

Now lets talk about that pickle. $2.75 for one pickle dipped in some batter and made disgusting I thought was a little steep, but I was willing to try it, and actually you get your moneys worth, because you get a platter of spears, equaling I would assume close to one and 3/4ths pickles. It reminded me of a cheap mozzarella stick that had been under cooked in the microwave, where the scalding batter holds its form like a suit of armor and the chilled insides bounce around in the center. The soggy texture and strong vinegar taste of wilted pickle mixed with the grease soaked dull crunch of the battered shell did little to impress me, and in the end I found the portion to be quite too large.

The 8^th Ave Fat Mo, was I gotta say, a lot better than the White Bridge one. For starters it had been made with some level of precision, the toppings (which included a few not seen on my White Bridge burger) were all evenly dispersed, and with all the weight distributed evenly, no threat of crumbling or spillage was detected. The only thing was, and I suspect this to be my fault and not Fat Mo’s, that I felt worse after eating at the 8^th Ave one, even the next day. Yes, possibly because it was my second Fat Mo of the day, which I know is wrong, and maybe throwing in the fried pickles and fries didn’t help either, but what can I say, I had to find out which one was better, if the rumors were true, and now we all know.

Interstate Barbecue

2010-10-16T10:37:00.001-07:00

Wednesday October 13^th 2010

Interstate Barbecue, S 3^rd and Mallory, Memphis, TN

When I would ask former residents and frequent visitors of the city of Memphis what barbecue place to check out on my visit to town, usually an entire list would be presented, but Interstate Barbecue was the only place that seemed to make it onto every one, so naturally that’s exactly where we went. Earning its name, we only travelled a few blocks north of the exit from I-55, through the desolate neglect and disrepair that Memphis is so famous for before arriving at the destination. I almost turned into the wrong parking lot at first because that one was full of cars, luckily I caught the mistake in time and sprawled the van out alone in front of this magnificent mural.

For a place that had come so recommended, sported such a nice exterior painting, and seemed to hold some level of fame judging by the People Magazine and USA Today awards boasted about on their menu, I expected more of a crowd. The huddle of waitresses around the front door learning about October being popcorn popping month from the news on TV (a good news topic for a city with one of the highest murder rates), instructed us to sit wherever we’d like. A nightmare for anyone too indecisive as every table in the rather large dining area remained wide open, but somehow we managed, settling comfortably into a booth and reading up on what we could eat.

The easiest and safest bet seemed to be the pulled pork sandwich, initially I thought about ordering the small and getting a side of cole slaw, but I furthered the convenience by saying “me too” after Crom ordered his large. We passed a few moments with some more local news absurdity (“…authorities believe he is no longer wearing his orange prison jump suit…”) before the food was delivered. It was the kind of sandwich that needs to be sized up first, you must view it from all angles, you have to invision picking it up in a variety of positions, a game plan on how to start eating it must be deduced before action is taken. And so I did, rotating it by the plate, treating my eyes to 360 degrees of molten pork decadence, while my brain did the number crunching in an attempt to figure out the most effective way to get it off the plate. In what proved to be incorrect I held the top bun in place with the four fingers of each of my hands while my thumbs acted as a support for the already sauce moistened bottom. This operation should have been reversed, as on lift off a good portion of pork, sauce, and slaw spilled out onto the plate. That’s right, slaw right there in the sandwich.

The first time I had a BBQ pulled pork sandwich I remember feeling a little slighted, like ‘This is is? It’s just some sloppy pork chunks in a roll?’. I wasn’t like ‘Wheres the lettuce and tomato?’ or anything, but I’d expected at least one other ingredient, although I wasn’t sure what. As the years passed I forgot about that attitude and grew to love pulled pork sandwiches just like that, nice and simple, but then as soon as I tasted it mixed in with the creamy and unexpected crunch of the slaw additive, I remembered exactly why I had felt that way. There was a reason after all why I’d wanted to order a side of slaw, thankfully I hadn’t. I’m not sure if slaw right there in the sandwich without even asking for it is a Memphis thing, but I approve.

Utensils needed to be applied eventually as the sandwich deteriorated with each bite into a pile of barbecue rubble and refuse smeared haphazardly across the plate. In time I was able to leave the plate decorated only with streaks of sauce and overlooked bread crumbs, finishing up my iced tea before the two of us sat in a period of reflection on our meal. The sheer amount we’d eaten didn’t exactly register until we stood up, at which point the sandwich which felt as if it sat whole inside my stomach, sunk from whatever higher plane it sat on, plunging deep into the depths of some inner pit. A good pummeling of the gut.

While paying at the register we noticed that the restaurant had an entire other half, more like a to go area with some bench seating that wasn’t full, but busy with customers. It dawned on us that we were the weirdos eating on the other side.

Life and health insurance advertisements, previously unseen, decorated the parking lot where we aimlessly strolled for a few minutes, sighing and breathing heavily before returning to the comfortable seating of the van and setting out to find Bruce St without directions or knowledge of the city, which ended up working. It was hours before I recovered, and I didn’t go without a seat all night long.

24 HOUR BBQ

2010-10-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday October 10^th, 2010

24 HOUR BARBECUE, Nashville, TN

On my 19^th birthday I accepted a ride to Brooklyn with some friends. With no kind of plan we didn’t so much celebrate it as much as we did just wander around, showing up at peoples apartments, buying things at bodegas, crashing parties, and exploring well into the next morning. Throughout our walk we continually noticed a small black and white poster, 8.5 X 11, stapled amongst the clutter of seemingly similar advertisements on telephone poles and sides of buildings. This specific poster had our attention. Quite simply it read, ’24 Hour BBQ’, written in an ‘urban’ font to make it look as though it had been spray painted with a stencil, there was no date, no time, no address, no vague hint at a location for this theoretical event, just a clear and precise definition of what it was; a 24 hour BBQ. We didn’t know what to make of it, someone eventually said “Cool” after we’d been scratching out chins over it for a while.

Being cast out of what looked to be our last rooftop party of the evening, we navigated the streets with the assistance of 99 cent Colt 45’s, which is to say without rhyme, reason, or purpose, searching for a place to spend the last hour of darkness. Having strayed off the main road we passed through a once industrial center in the process of being gussied up for artist lofts, and into a neighborhood where homes and a plethora of auto repair shops lived side by side in harmony. We turned left, we turned right, we walked straight, uncertain of where we’d end up, of where or what our final destination was. It hadn’t occurred to me that a higher power was guiding us, that its hand lay firmly upon my shoulders, pivoting me to the left, where there directly in front of me lay the fabled, the secretive and secluded, the very real 24 hour BBQ.

Now based on its heavy advertising lining the hip streets of Brooklyn, based on the idea itself, I expected, as you well might, a fantastical blow out; beautiful people, a couple hundred of them, dancing, looking cool, manning top of the line grills, having the time of their lives being privileged enough to be in the know about this secret society of barbecuing. Not the case! What I cautiously approached were two timid indie rockers sitting on a stoop, pushing a couple pork chops around on a small camping style charcoal grill, while two muscular Latino men from the auto body shop across the street who appeared to be well into the next weeks alcohol ration, berated them from the sidewalk, cackling between enormous mouthfuls of pork. A small stack of the flyers we’d seen lay next to the grill. I was confused, I had to clarify.

“This is the 24 Hour Barbecue?”, I asked, interrupting the jeering cries of the drunken mechanics.

“Yeah….yeah it is…”, the indie rockers responded invitingly, clearly overwhelmed with desperation to have some fresh blood in the mix, a force to help combat the one that was so obviously dominating, “You found it!” We sat down, got a rundown of what was going on, pretty self explanatory really, 24 hours of grilling, no real reason for it, kicked them a couple bucks for some burgers and ears of corn, managed to will away the auto shop guys, and under an intrusive ray of sunlight, bid our hosts farewell and carried on with whatever it was we were doing.

Flash forward, Summer 2008, Nashville, TN. Where as when I was 19, I had no grill, no knowledge of how to operate one, certainly no cash to buy food to cook, and really no desire to do those things anyways, but at 24 with the newly acquired Weber full size charcoal grill acting as centerpiece for our front lawn, money from the bagel route, and a desire to barbecue, a lot of grilling was being done. We were neck deep in the Summer of Sausage, the grill was getting far more use than the stove. Naturally I thought back to that weird day in Brooklyn, spending dawn munching a burger with two flannel shirted Caucasians and belligerent Latinos, stumbling upon their bizarre quest by pure fate. A 24 hour BBQ was beginning to sound like something I could maybe get into.

Doing some research, I typed “24 hour BBQ” into Google, expecting to be presented with dozens of comically depressing photo albums of sickly folks well over their food capacities approaching the 21^st hour, and hopefully some sort of account of my Brooklyn friends experience. However the only page to surface in the search results was a MySpace blog entry from a Portland, OR man who had attempted several 24 hour BBQ’s and wrote in detail about his last one. He described saving up his food stamps for three months (funny its always broke people who try and do things like this), cooked all day long, and within the last three hours collapsed from fatigue and over satiation on his way to get a beer from the fridge. No big deal really, except his rule was that something needed to be on the grill at all times. He awoke startled several minutes later and rushed to the living room where he found his friends passed out on the couch in unflattering positions with The Simpsons playing on the TV, in a mad panic he scurried out the back door to find that just in the nick of time two girls he didn’t even know had shown up and thrown some steaks on the grill! Saved! It sounded like a fun I would need to experience, so next Summer in the rather barbecue unfriendly city of Philadelphia, it happened.

Not unlike many first attempts, our 24 hour BBQ was rife with flaws that became immediately apparent in the next days retrospect. Foolishly Rick and I accepted a 7AM moving job the day of, waking up at 6:15 to drive out to the burbs, load some lady’s furniture into the van and drive it back down to the city. So after a night of spotty sleep and a rigorous mornings worth of labor, we began the festivities at noon. Scott Otis who had caught wind of the occasion and hopped a Bolt Bus down to Philly, underestimated the effects of Old Crow and wandered off into North Philly the night of his arrival only to return several hours late to the barbecue the next day.

And so at noon on that late August day it began, propane tank locked in firmly, we sparked it up in Rick’s backyard and threw on some ‘beef chips’ we’d picked up at the Asian market, each cracking a bottle of Pabst to symbolize the blowing of the whistle. A modest handful of folks swung by to partake in a quick snack, ushering themselves out before too long to busy themselves with another distraction, and when the scenery of Rick’s house and the I-95 underpass got stale, we moved along. Having done a decent job of filling an entire shopping cart with food while shopping for this day, we saved ourselves the trouble of tediously loading it into the van bag by bag, and instead after casting a suspicious glance around the parking lot, hoisted the whole thing up into the back. This was no childish thievery, this was a calculated move. When switching locations, how else was one supposed to transport a hot grill? I coasted down the road in the van, applying no pressure whatsoever to the gas pedal, riding alongside Rick and Noah as they pushed the grill in its adorable stroller, cooking a single piece of corn. Noticing a road side produce stand, we did a drive by purchase of additional corn and tomatoes, before arriving at the Hazzard St warehouse, a location where we only basked in comfort for an hour or so before the rain came.

It came hard that day, weighing heavily on the protective tarp we ramshackily erected out front, relieving itself of liquid when it could bare no more, sending ample streams onto unsuspecting laps. Forced to seek a suitable enclosure, for six people in the van huddled around a smoking grill was proving to inadequate, we drove off, abandoning the shopping cart and its squid ring décor. Bratwursts rotated themselves with the movement of the van, switching which side was on the flame with each turn I took, while several spotters made sure they (and we, I suppose) were safe. We ended up at Lance’s house, dry via the luxury of his enclosed porch. This is where we ended up spending the bulk of our time, cooking jumbo sized turkey legs, burgers, ribs, and this is where we had the largest crowd.

Strolling the thin line between night and morning our crowd began to dwindle, along with our decision making capabilities, common sense, and after the intake of a couple lighter fluid drenched hot dogs, our appetites. Otis lay completely incapacitated, snoring and farting in a blanket of discarded trash on a wooden bench opposite the expansive charcoal grill at which Rick and I sat watching a lone hot dog wrinkle and char. Looking around, we realized quite a mess had been made. Empty beer boxes, cans, gnawed bones, plastic bags lay strewn about the courtyard of a loft complex at which none of us lived, like a pack of scavenging raccoons with no tact or concept of manners had wandered in and had their way with the place. After a failed game of hacky sack played with a bag of sauerkraut left the inside of the house decorated with its shrapnel, we decided it was time to move on. Leaving Scott to fend for himself, and the disaster area to be quarantined by another, Rick and I headed back to Hazzard St around 6AM, with 6 hours to go.

The two of us sat sipping coffee’s on the roof, deliriously debating the future of the grill session.

“I don’t know man,” I started, “maybe we should just go to sleep.” Rick considered it momentarily before being struck by a sudden blast of inspiration.

“No! No way man!” He exclaimed jumping around the roof, pointing at me. “We’ve come all this way. We only got 5 hours to go! We’re finishing it! We’re gonna do it!” I hated to, but I felt it necessary to point out a key issue that would hinder any further progress.

“Well, you know, we haven’t actually grilled anything for the past two hours.” This unseen realization, the sad fact that we’d already met defeat without even realizing it was a crushing blow to our brains already pulverized into fragility by 18 straight hours of barbecue lifestylings. We sat in a somber silence for several minutes, drinking coffee, before coming to the conclusion to watch Norm MacDonalds “Dirty Work”. I passed out moments into the film, awakening reluctantly around noon to a blue television screen, from Rick’s pokes to the back.

“Wake up.” He instructed me. “Scott found his way back somehow. We’re grilling out on the roof.” And it all began again. We didn’t win that one, but at least we did everything we could to see it through.

Believe it or not, I learned a lot that day, well, I learned a lot about having 24 hour BBQ’s. For example I realized that a core group of at least four people completely committed to being awake the entire time would be necessary to its success. Two just wasn’t enough. Fluctuating groups of people, hungry people, willing to eat when the grillmasters had pushed themselves to the limit, was also essential. An earlier start time seemed to make sense, sure it might be a little rough waking up and getting the grill all ready for 8 AM, but goddamn wouldn’t it feel great to be able to fall asleep at that time the next morning! Time consuming foods could also be of assistance. No ones hungry? Time to slow cook that rack of ribs for three hours!

Back in Nashville, a city who’s porches and yards do much to invite outdoor grilling, at 10:53 AM on 10/10/10 the first strip of bacon was laid across the grates of a hot grill. Val was inside preparing a potato salad while I worked on a breakfast in the backyard, cooking up bacon on the propane, and with two skillets, eggs and pancakes on the charcoal. A moderate crowd patiently materialized while the hours went by unnoticed in a true southern pace. Ribs and pork tenderloins were both slow cooked on indirect heat for a couple of hours, brats boiled all day long on the stove inside before being grilled up at nightfall, vegetable kabobs and a reserve stash of corn got tapped into before too long, and before we knew it the initial 1/3^rd of the barbecue had passed us by in what proved to be a surprisingly pleasant and relaxing occasion packed full of good tasting carefully prepared foods. Thinking back to the last one, it was a little shocking. For the time being at least, things seemed to be operating smoothly.

Around 8PM the crowd was herded down to Betty’s bar and grill for the Risky Flutes, Bill Nace, Diagram A show, and Crom got right to work cooking up flower shaped burgers on the family style gas grill on the back patio. Without snags, obstacles, or outside interference, we continued to the Wrenwood Avenue house after the show at around 1AM. Equipped with two charcoal grills, one steering wheel sized and the other a deep cauldron with the circumference of an oil drum fastened to a wheel bound plastic base, we ended up opting to cook in the tiny one, and start a fire in the jumbo sized one which was already maimed and disfigured from previous blazes. Leslie ran around the yard collecting various twigs and random lawn refuse which she unnecessarily soaked in lighter fluid and began to burn, while I prepped up the charcoal in the other grill for some filets of tilapia, and Crom sautéed his Rhode Island style meat sauce for the hot wieners which were eventually to be made (the later the better).

Following suit with nature, around 4AM, the people who hadn’t already left began to tire. Ryan, who had been interjecting snide remarks like “You’re not really barbecuing you know, this is just grilling.”, and “You’re not really cooking that fish as much as you are smoking it right now.”, all night, continued to nod off next to the fire which was now roaring mightily with the addition of a neighbors discarded wicker chair, who’s flaming legs constantly threated to roll off the grill and onto his back. Hypnotized by the fire, I began to fade, snapping back into clarity only from the occasional spilling of a beer left unattended in my pocket. Crom, Ryan, and I sat there together but distant, very silent, entranced by the fire, and having told ourselves we were ‘taking a break’ from grilling, I began to see what was happening, our fates were sealed, the end was near.

Without warning, I woke up. My body reformed assuming a position more natural than the sitting down slumped over one I had fallen asleep in. It was 8:30 AM, I was quite cold sitting in the metal rocking chair in the front yard, freshly awoken, and alone. Confused, unable to see through a thick mental fog, I gathered up my things (a cooler and a bag of charcoal), drove home, humorously including myself in the morning rush hour traffic, and got in bed.

The score stands two to zero and I’m thinking I might leave it that way. No sense as far as I can tell in pushing it further, trying it again. Clearly, I am not the man for the job. Two failures deep and I’d say I’m a knowledgeable man in the art of 24 hour barbecuing, not the best executioner, but if I were hired as a planner and a coach for someone elses I’m confident I’d be able to guide them to a victory. A lot was learned from the first one, many of those things were reiterated to me in the second, and I won’t take the information for granted. Come next Summer, we’ll see how I’m feeling.

Sam's Kebab Gyros

2010-10-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Friday October 1^st 2010

Sam’s Kebab Gyros, Hwy 70S at Old Hickory Blvd, Nashville, TN

Taking a break in the middle of a 13 hour shift a couple weeks back I set out on an extended journey to find something decent to eat, my only options in relatively close proximity being Krystal, Whitt’s, and the fancy restaurant at my work where even with my 50% discount I still can’t justify eating. Working deep in the outskirts of the city, practically on the county line, I had to do a good deal of rural excursion style driving before locating a prime suburban business district. Like a landing strip the options unfolded before me; Captain D’s, KFC, Hardees, it wasn’t looking any better than where I’d come from. In desperation I shifted my focus towards locating a Wendy’s, tricking myself into believing that could make me happy. The good lord had his eye on me that day my friends, and he batted that fast food demon in front of the subway with a casual nonchalance only a sentient being could have. There, off to my left, tucked snugly between the TJ Max and CVS, the similarly bold red lettering managed to capture my attention, ‘Kebab Gyros’ emblazoned on the structures beige plaster façade for all the world to see. An obstacle presented itself; I was in the wrong lane. I could just go a little further up and flip around, I thought to myself before remembering the difference in size between my vehicle and the majority of others on the road. I clicked on my left blinker (which I later discovered to be broken) and forced the comical smidge of a car next to me to stop in its tracks, tooting its kazoo-esque horn, as I eased my way across the lane into the parking lot.

I ordered a Gyro, what else, agreed to have everything available stuffed inside, and watched hesitantly as Sam (I would presume) sculpted what looked to be a rather tiny, neat, and compact sandwich. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, it seemed too delicate and precise compared to the Gyros I was used to, but lone behold it proceeded to thoroughly impress me. The meat was sliced painstakingly thin and came packed in with generous helpings of taboule, lettuce, tomatoes, feta cheese, and tzatziki sauce. I’m not sure how it all fit in there really, an optical illusion perhaps. They had me sold, I returned the next day to try the chicken sandwich and grape leaves, both of which were soaked in oil and brutalized my stomach for the remainder of my nighttime shift, pointing cars in the general direction they might find someplace to park. Had they sold me? Was I rushing this? Did things get serious too fast? I think so. I took three weeks to think it over, and returned with slight reluctance to try their Gyro sandwich lunch special.

Sam’s assistant sprinkled a layer of seasoning salt across my basket of fries, glancing at me first with the shaker poised readily in his hand, looking for an expression of approval to which I obliged, taking my seat after hitting the iced tea dispenser. Positioned in view of all patrons is an oversized widescreen television, blaring CNN at considerable volume. It demands the attention of all in the restaurant, acting like a debriefing station, subjecting all customers to a barrage of inconsequential information you have no choice but to absorb along with your food. Their story on young conservatives brewing up trouble at a gay rights rally proved to be upsetting, leaving me with hate for all involved parties by the end of the segment, a feeling which seemed to linger in the air around the entire restaurant. New customers would walk through the door approaching the counter with an irritable attitude and disgusted expression, for which the television vibe could be the only thing responsible. I shoveled in the crispy fries and the Gyro that seemed somewhat less full than the previous one, emptying the contents of my tray into the tzatziki sauce smeared trash can, and escaping the medias hypnotism. My final opinion on this place has still yet to fully form, one part of me would like to move on and leave it a thing of the past, while the other part knows theres really no better place to eat and can clearly see future CNN stories transfixing my thoughts while food involuntarily finds its way to my mouth. Time will tell.

Wendell Smith's

2010-09-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

Monday September 13th 2010
Wendell Smith’s, 53rd and Charlotte, Nashville, TN

Meat and Three is another one of those things that never made it up to the north. Well, I suppose the concept arrived there quite naturally, but the coined phrase definitely has not.
“You know, it’s like a Meat and Three place.”, someone told me once, describing a restaurant. Except I didn’t know.
“What the hell is that?” I responded. But if you ponder it for a moment or two, the answer clearly comes; a meat with three sides, it’s simple enough.
Scott Otis, now accustomed to hopping around erratically on his one decent leg, caught wind of the Meat and Three and insisted upon dining at one, eager to partake in any activity outside of the living room. We opted for Wendell Smith’s, a split liquor store and meat and three diner on the corner of 53rd and Charlotte, proudly displaying the neon ‘whiskey’ sign for all of West Nashville to see. The meat and three section of their menu changes daily and is therefore hand written, photocopied, and paper clipped to their actual permanent laminated diner fare menu. After brief debate between the pit-roast barbecue or the Polish sausage with kraut meat options, I sided with the sausage, learning that the pork was ‘pit-roasted’ at Whitt’s across the street. For my sides I played it pretty safe going with mac n cheese, green beans, and creamed potatoes with a side of corn bread. Going into this situation I had one grave misconception about the meal, I thought it would be good, of a decent quality. When they said “home style cooking”, I hadn’t expected the home to be that of a toothless tube feeder who’s kitchen consists solely of a microwave and can only do their shopping at Save-A-Lot.

My sub par (even for hospital quality) green beans sat slovenly in a pool of their own excreted juices, where any trace of nutrients that hadn’t already been sucked from them at the canning factory likely escaped to. Creamed potatoes, in my foolish mind, conjured up an image of thinly sliced potatoes smothered in a rich cheese sauce, glistening by candlelight in an elegant bowl on the table. What I received was actually far more accurate to the name, a powdery box mix of additional starch and additive infused potato related molecules, brought to the thin line between liquid and slop with the aid of warm water. Creamed? Someone annihilated those potatoes, maybe years in the past, and humiliated them presently by drizzling a sweet brown gravy into an indented tide pool atop the mound. What made the dauntingly sized sausage on my plate more Polish than your average ball game jumbo, I will never know. It was clearly of the store bought and pre-cooked variety, remaining chilled in the center, a good 30 seconds under microwaved, topped with a lewd amount of sauerkraut that was now wilted, browned, and steaming hot, having accompanied my sausage into the rotating radiation machine. Now the mac n cheese I had no problem with, it was good. Did someone toil over it for hours? Was it a Smith family recipe, perfected by generations of culinary attention? I suspect it to be a random boxed brand from the store, or maybe just elbow macaroni covered in Velveeta, and yes, that was the best part of the meal. The corn bread, simple in theory, yet deceptively easy to mess up, was obviously bad. Brittle and grainy it stubbornly descended the esophagus, taking various internal tissue samples on its way.
Unamused, I stacked the bowls of sides, silverware, and napkins on my plate and leaned back in the booth sipping my iced tap water. The only time I could ever see myself coming back here, I thought to myself, would be for a 2 AM breakfast, late night “what else can I do?” style. Searching the glass door for an hours of operation decal I discovered that although they do open at 6 AM they are closed by 7 PM. So it doesn’t look like I’ll be making it back to Wendell Smith’s anytime soon. Not to speak ill of the meat and three, how can you? It’s pretty much the blueprint of any classic wholesome American dinner. It’s just that next time I’d rather pay a couple more bucks and wait longer than 2 minutes, in exchange for something involving care and quality.

Waffle House

2010-08-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday August 29th 2010
Waffle House, White Bridge Rd and White Bridge Pl, Nashville, TN

Late 90's, I’m twelve maybe thirteen years old, soaring down the interstate in the back seat of my parents Toyota counting South of the Border signs, in the good old American south for the first time on our way to visit family in Florida. And shortly after our entry into that state, in its humid vegetation heavy north, I was struck with the sudden urgency to urinate. Not taking my shyness and awkward social hesitations into account, my parents pull up to a Waffle House and tell me to run in. I’d seen the signs before, in fact they plagued me like a stalker taking the “remain at a fifty foot distance” part of their restraining order far to literally, their black and yellow logo like an evil bumble bee lurking on every exits food sign. My shoe clapped up a cloud of dust as I stepped out of the car, I was in a vacant wasteland save for the explosion of subtropical plant growth and the occasional passing of a dented pick up truck. Had it not been for the pressing need to relieve myself, a call which would not go unanswered, there is simply no way I’d have crossed through those doors. Desperate times.
I knew it couldn’t go well, but there was nothing that would have prepared me for a reality this harsh. Timidly, I eased my body through a narrow crack in the doorway. My mind was simultaneously consumed with getting to the bathroom as fast as possible and remaining undetected by the staff and customers, I saw no reason why both couldn’t be accomplished if I kept my focus. The problem is, I didn’t, letting the door slam behind me, causing a chain reaction of heads turning in my direction and their eyes laying upon me. Heads and eyes which combined with stubbly facial hair, teeth suffering from years of neglect, skin tainted by a lifetime of smoke exposure, thin scraggly strands of hair escaping from a tightly affixed ball cap, and stares as blank as a page, formed the faces of more motley a cast than any movie could ever wish to portray. Flies buzzed about in rhythm with the faint country twang emanating from their dust laden jukebox. All were silent. I found myself in the lair of a species I’d never known to exist. They ain’t got no Waffle House in Rhode Island.
It was certainly a scarring experience, but as the years passed and I began to venture into the south as an adult, it didn’t take too long for me to figure out that Waffle House was pretty much the cheapest place around to get something to eat, and although I would dwell on that extraterrestrial experience I had that day with a fear I couldn’t shake, I again crossed through those doors with every ounce of bravery I had, and in time got used to it. I’d never seen any southern fried freaks that bad before, but I’ve seen worse since.
As breakfasts that blurred the line between early and late became a more common occurrence in my travels, Waffle House became associated with being away from home. If I was at a Waffle House I was somewhere else. Because why, in your city of residence, with access to a kitchen, and/or knowledge of a better place to eat, would you go to Waffle House? Not for a cup of Bert’s Chili of course. Or for a plate of scattered, smothered, covered, topped, and capped hash browns. These were novelties that one ate in absence of another eating choice, b- for sustenance, and a- for traveling traditions sake. Yet now, in a turn of events that could never have been foreseen or believed by my youthful post initial Waffle House experience mind, I live (according to Google Maps) 0.7 miles from one. I drive by it EVERY DAY, and it reminds me of where I am. “It would feel so weird going there.”, I said aloud the other day, and of course less than a week later, it happened.
Some of us at least were anticipating the arrival of one Scott Otis, fellow Rhode Islander, and professional antic enactor. Who wasted no time, getting right down to business, folding his leg in half on a tire swing nine hours into his one week stay, breaking it so bad that the severed bone became exposed, overlapping the skin in which it should have been incased, ending up like this.

Pure gore. The rest of us chatted about it uncontrollably after the paramedics took him away, tied to a stretcher, pleasantly distant on morphine, and broke our topic of conversation only for one brief moment; to decide to go to Waffle House. It was 4:30 AM, we’d been up all day, but when you get a glimpse at your friends protruding and shattered bone, the necessity of sleep escapes you. So the four of us headed on over, our thoughts in other places, the image of Scotts misshapen leg stuck in our brains like the screen saver on a frozen computer, and ordered our food.
Most of these things dawned on me afterwards, as I wasn’t exactly clear headed or I wouldn’t have been there in the first place, but their staff presence was much higher than it should have been for the hour it was, I mean I know the elderly do some weird things, but 4:30? There were about ten people working. And then when John Adams tried to order, “I’ll have the two eggs with sausage...”, he was cut off by our waitress.
“We’re out of sausage. Actually, we’re out of sausage, bacon, ham, and t-bones.” The fact that a breakfast restaurant would be out of all their breakfast meats is totally absurd, not to mention awful for business, and when Adams was either about to say it was ok, or start freaking out, Val burst into a fit of tears triggered by the mention of being “out of t-bones”, because we knew all too well about that didn’t we. As you may expect this took our waitress by surprise. “Did I say something?”, she shrieked with concern, jumping a few feet back with her hand to her chest. We explained to her that yes in fact she had, composure was regained, and the ordering process completed.

I basically get the same thing every time I come here; two eggs scrambled with cheese, hash browns ‘covered’ with cheese and then loaded up with ketchup, some pieces of overly margarined white bread toast, and several cups of watered down black coffee. I know, its disgusting, but what are you supposed to do? It all goes down real easy, heavily lubricated with liquid grease, and the flavors although varied all end up tasting pretty much the same, gelling together into one indifferent mash. Classic diner mediocrity (see my entry: Richmond Diner).
Far from satisfied, far from pleased, we sailed away from the Waffle House in Old Vanny, away into the streets, shielding our eyes from the burn of the morning sun. We found out later from a friend who attempted to dine at that same Waffle House only hours before that they had just been hit with a ‘50' health score! Betty’s Bar and Grill, not a filthy place, but described as clean by no one, has a ‘93'! This explained the high staff presence, all cleaning odd corners of the restaurant, and their lack of breakfast meats, as they had a one day grace period to get it back up to respectable operating standards. I suspect they did nothing to notify us of this situation, but it’s possible we were just too out of it to notice, I mean there really wasn’t anyone else in there now that I think of it.
The real question though, is was it as weird as I thought it would be, dining at a Waffle House and taking the 2 minute trip back home? Had I done so at 7PM after a day of clean living, I could only imagine myself feeling stumped and perplexed at the rapid degradation of my mind which allowed me to do such a thing. After a long night ending in a major injury and hospitalization, its no surprise we ended up there, there wasn’t even debate about it, we all naturally came to the conclusion that’s where we’d go to at least make an attempt at getting back to normal. Sleep came on strong after my short journey home, and although it was only days ago it seems as far away as my first visit. So to answer my question, no, it wasn’t that weird, it wasn’t the space time continuum shattering event I expected, Waffle House has changed for me since my first trip, and looks like it will continue to from now on.

El Tapatio

2010-08-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

Saturday August 28th 2010
El Tapatio, 4801 Nolensville, Nashville, TN

I thought I was there. I thought for sure I was ready. My first time with tongue was at the infamous Midnight Tacos in Los Angeles, I tried a bite of my friends burrito lengua just for the experience, so I’d know what it was all about, and was taken aback by the pleasant relatively normal flavor and texture it had. Not at all what I’d expected. That was a few years back. Last week we find ourselves in the Salvation Army parking lot on Nolensville, fully expecting a visit to the store, and instead we got distracted by a small taco truck that also shared the lot, and ordered some food. To refresh my memory, to give it another shot, I got a tongue taco, and as expected I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not exactly sure how it was prepared, possibly fried, but it tasted amazing, and I found myself wishing that I’d manned up and gotten a whole tongue quesadilla, cursing my pork choice, longing for more of that succulent tongue taste. That’s what had me convinced it was my newly discovered love.
El Tapatio on Nolensville came recommended from this really weird spaced out psychedelic dude who was hanging out at Crom’s house one night telling a story about how shocked and blown away he was when a thickly southern accented waiter and owner of a diner he visited told him he could “go out back and smoke on my deck if you’d like”, until he finally realized what the guy was actually saying. It was a nice place inside, bright, spacious, weird Mexican paintings and old movies playing on the television. We were served a complimentary bowl of extra chunky guacamole and freshly made tortilla chips, warm to the touch, lightly salted, delicious. And I knew exactly what I wanted to order, tongue quesadilla.

My future disappointment should be prefaced with the knowledge that the night before there were some friends in town, we stayed up late partying, and the three or so hours I’d been awake so far, the only thing I’d managed to work into my already sensitive stomach were two large glasses of black iced coffee. It was a gastrointestinal meltdown that could have benefitted from many other things before it could have benefitted from this, this entire buffet on a plate, this six person gut busting party platter of beans, rice, peppers, pico de gallo, radishes, chips, guacamole, and lest we forget the tortilla plentifully stuffed with cheese and tongue.

Actually I believe that this would probably be a more authentic way of preparing tongue, again I have no idea how they prepared it, but it was much more tender and juicier than the other I’d had which had an outer crunch to it. It’s flavor was much stronger as well, conjuring up non-existent memories of having my face bathed by a cow. Where as the tongue in last weeks taco had a pretty nondescript appearance, it could have been anything, and maybe it was something else, this was unmistakably tongue, chopped up into cubes, taste buds looking up at you, layers of muscle tissue visible in the cross section. I got through a quarter of it before I asked myself, “wait a minute, do I like this?”, and the answer was no, I didn’t. I finished another quarter out of personal obligation and waste concern before I had to throw in the towel. “At least Scott Otis is coming into town tonight, he’ll finish these.” we said as the large remaining portion was scraped into a styrofoam box.
Really, I was sad, because I thought tongue was maybe my new thing. I could make a tongue pizza, learn how to cook it myself, there were all these exciting prospects that suddenly got shut down when after eating the same tongue a proud Mexican would enjoy, I felt disgust and shame. I thought back on it, “was it just my fragile stomach, sore from a tag team beat down courtesy of coffee and beer?”, and honestly I didn’t think so, it didn’t help, but unfortunately I don’t care for authentically prepared tongue. I will however return to El Tapatio for another selection, it seemed like quite the nice place. No hard feelings.

Miss Saigon

2010-08-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday August 19th 2010
Miss Saigon, K & S Plaza, Charlotte Pike, Nashville, TN

Here in this shopping center on Charlotte Ave, a rivalry exists. For where stands authentic Vietnamese restaurant Kien Giang, also stands authentic Vietnamese restaurant Miss Saigon, shooting each other evil eye glances across the parking lot until the day one ceases to function. Having tried Kien Giang, experiencing varying degrees of success and failure, we thought it only fair and in our best interest to give Miss Saigon a shot as well to see what we were missing out on.
What we found upon entry was an empty restaurant save for one table of two college nerds discussing their thesis papers and social tribulations. I know this because despite having literally every other table in the restaurant (of no modest size) to choose from, we were sat directly next to them. I know they like to keep people in specific sections for convenience sake and to avoid confusion, but it would have been very hard for us to get swallowed up by the crowd and forgotten in this case.

We ordered one BBQ pork Bahn Mi sandwich and a bowl of Pho each. The sandwich was of a different style than any Vietnamese Bahn Mi I’ve ever had, the bread wasn’t the typical crunchy French baguette I was used to, instead it was served on a light brown roll, much softer, with the appearance of Portugese sweet bread. For no good reason, I didn’t want to like this place, and seeing the sandwich the way it was, so different and all, made me think I didn’t. Until I bit in. My prejudicial feelings had to be put to the side, it was good, quite good, no need to discriminate based on bread choice in this case. I mean bread is one of the most important ingredients in a sandwich, possibly thee most important, and they took a real risk straying away from the tried and true, but they pulled it off goddamn it.
Then came the Pho. Still harboring some skepticism towards Nashville Pho, I proceeded slowly, guiding the ladle of broth to my lips with a tractor beam of cooling breath, bracing myself for the possibility of complete repulsion and involuntary retching brought on by an inferior craftsmanship. Unnecessary! Based on first taste alone I would rate their broth better than Kien Giang, and better than I expected. My issue however, was that I got totally skimped on the meat. The struggle of breaking my Pho Ga (chicken) routine was easy, they left me no other choice because it wasn’t served here, so I went with the rare steak Pho, where the meats supposed to cook in the broth. Not only were there very few pieces, but it also wasn’t that rare, and it was like 1 or 2 more dollars than Kien Giang.

If you want to get into a real debate about it, a real head to head, Miss Saigon is quieter than Kien Giang, as in stark silence, where as the inane babble of joke game shows will plague you at Kien Giang, really it’s a matter of mood and opinion. Based on my one visit (which granted might not be so fair) Miss Saigon has a tastier broth than Kien Giang, but Kien Giang offers you more food for less money, and they’ve got cheaper beers. It’s a tough call really, and I was going to say I couldn’t make up my mind, but then I asked myself: if I awoke standing in the center of the parking lot, ten bucks in my hand, starving and confused, head darting back and forth between the two eateries, equidistant to both, which would I run to? And I couldn’t even say it out loud, but I had a vision where I ran with arms outstretched, the facade of Kien Giang coming closer and closer. There you have it.
As I stood at the front counter waiting for my change, I reached into a complimentary bowl of fortune cookies. “I’ll grab two.”, I thought to myself, “One for me, one for the lady.” It came as surprise that they came two to a pack, but I got over it quick and started my walk outside. My second surprise came when I saw how little effort I had to put into opening this dual cookie package, it was energy efficient, sliding open with a mere stroke of my hand. The way I like to eat a fortune cookie is by cracking it in half, removing the receipt, and going for it, so my third shocker came when the cookie, stubborn as it was, refused to break like all its siblings I’ve known throughout the years, and instead flexed with an impressive elasticity. Against my best judgement, I decided to chow down, exposing myself to a sour and chalky, yet gum like dough, toxifying my mouth, ruining the lingering taste of the meal I had up until now enjoyed. So my advice is to try the place out, but give the cookies a squeeze test before you accept.

Gerst Haus

2010-08-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday August 14th 2010
Gerst Haus, Interstate Dr and James Roberton Pkwy, Nashville, TN

The Melrose Billiards was an establishment I would frequent from time to time for use of their shuffleboard table kept in the molding game room towards the back. Usually just one beer would be purchased from the un-enthused, un-conversational, frowny faced bartender, who although he must have noticed, cared not in the least about the rest of the beers we snuck in via backpack through the back door. Inconsiderate times. The one purchase I would make to justify my time on the shuff table would be a Gerst. A strange beer with a strange name, who’s origins always escaped us until, while circling around the stadium area downtown one day in attempt to free our incarcerated friend, we noticed the Gerst Haus. A German sausage house ripped from its Deutschland soil and deposited near the interstate in Nashville, TN.
Crom spoke wonders of their schnitzels, wursts, krauts, dense potato based sides, and live polka band, all of which he took in on his birthday while I was living out of town. With my birthday only days away, and Rat Bastard rambling on about RV’s in my kitchen fresh off a red eye from Miami, the Gerst Haus seemed like a good place for a mid afternoon celebratory detour. Old Vanny made the rounds, picking up the crew from their various living quarters in West Nashville, until at nearly full capacity she whisked us onto the interstate and took us to the Gerst Haus’s general vicinity.
Although my only time spent in Germany was in an airport shuttle driving from Nuremberg to Munich after our plane was diverted due to foggy landing conditions, the Gerst Haus seemed authentically German in comparison to my hour and a half journey. It was pretty dimly lit inside, outside light refracted off stained glass panes that decorated the top of the windows. Everyone needed extra deliberation time on the menu, it was expansive and expensive, we all ended up spending like $20!?! We sipped these “fishbowls” of Warsteiner while we waited, but some went for the Gerst.

I absolutely love Bratwurst, but I wanted to try something new and ended up siding with the Knackwurst dinner. Two full Knackwurst sausage links, made of a beef and pork combination, with sides of Spaetzle and Sauerkraut, and two pieces of rye toast. The Spaetzle I was told was a potato dish, and I believed it while eating it, it was reminiscent of a Gnocchi, and had the texture of some type of curds. In reality I guess it’s a heavy blob shapen egg noodle, which they topped with a brown gravy. I mixed it all together with some of the horseradish and beer mustard, heavy but excellent.
The Knackwursts were encased in a tight skin with a juicy pale meat mash inside. Honestly they were just okay. Maybe I’m not a Knackwurst guy, but I think it’s more likely that the Gerst Haus doesn’t have the best ones. Especially after trading a piece for some of Crom’s Bratwurst, I realized how grave a mistake I had made. The Brat was amazing, soft and crumbling beautifully flavored meats, prepared without flaw. Whereas the Knackwurst had a tougher outside that didn’t rip uniformly, appearance and taste wise resembling a pre cooked Kielbasa you’d find in the grocery store. It’s not like I didn’t eat it or anything! I dug into those puppies, mixing each bite up with a bite of rye and what I thought was a heaping helping of Kraut, until once the sausages were about done I realized my Kraut bowl was still pretty much full. I’d eaten a lot of it. I don’t know what they expect you to do with that much Kraut. I tried a few spoonfuls of it straight, but something was missing, what was it? Oh yeah, anything else.

We attempted to wrap up the occasion, but Rat insisted on ordering some fresh pretzels, foolishly declining his side of beer cheese. “I don’t need any beer cheese.”, he said. ???. And so the rest of us reclined with hands on stomachs, breathing a little heavier, spectating upon the dual pretzel post Bratwurst dinner and fishbowl consumption, which furthered our feelings of over satiation.
The ride back wasn’t as chatty, and when we got back home Rat instantly laid down on the carpet with his guitar case as a pillow and launched into a helicopter snore. The gravitational pull of my bed was irresistible, and under its trance, I was sucked in, waking up three hours later, having to re-reorient myself to the day.

Fattoush Cafe

2010-08-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

Monday August 9th 2010
Fattoush Café, 18th and Charlotte, Nashville, TN

Back when I first lived in Nashville, I discovered this place after a particularly busy afternoon spent doing $12 psychology experiments at my home away from home, Wilson Hall, on the Vanderbilt campus. Not feeling as sharp as I’d normally like to, after staring at the computer pressing the Z and M buttons in rapid succession for three hours, I took a couple wrong turns on my way back home and ended up a little further down Charlotte than usual, right in front of the Fattoush Café. Loaded with $36 of that funny study money, needing a mental re-set, and genuinely loving Mediterranean food, I checked the place out. A renovation was underway. Protective plastic sheeting hung all around the dining room, shielding us from the drywall dust and paint fumes that lurked beyond. The floor had been completely destroyed. Almost no one else was around. I liked it that way, and made it a regular stop on the way home from the psych experiments, having a $5 gyro in peace, and enjoying the positive antics of the owner/cook who was always exceptionally friendly, and insisted that you don’t take your food to go, hoping someone would walk by, see me, and realize it was ok to eat in there.
Almost two years later, things are different. Renovations are complete, they’ve got palm trees, beaded curtains with palm trees on them, a nice slick floor, a new paint job. And not for nothing, it seems to me to be quite a popular place these days, there were all kinds of people in there, enjoying themselves.
The owner guy, who does a lot to keep himself busy, is a real character, and apparently a sly fox with the ladies. I sat at a table off to the side after ordering, just looking around the room passing time. A couple of women, business professionals, finished their lunch, and while one went to the back to throw their trash away, the other stood by the door.
“Thank you so much.”, the owner said to her.
“Oh, thank you. It was great!”, she told him.
By this point, her friend was halfway across the room, and it was then that she felt his gaze. It had to have been a strong stare, because she took a sudden notice to it, and jerked her head up, meeting eyes with the owner, who quite smoothly right in their interlocking moment said, “Bye bye beautiful.” And not in some friendly uncle kind of way, dude was serious. Just after they left a young blonde, likely a student, came in. He already knew her order, and instructed her to sit in the seat closest to the cash register. She had books all over the table and was feverishly writing notes down, she might have actually gotten some work done if it wasn’t for the dude interrupting her every minute or so, telling jokes, reading her papers, telling her how good the food was going to be.

Normally I got the Gyro here, which was always awesome, but this time I switched it up and went with the Beef Shawerma sandwich. Thin strips of beef, stuffed into a pita with some cucumber chunks, Tabouli, some sesame tzatziki sauce, and a bunch of small green leafy vegetable things, names unknown. One of the green vegetable things, or something in there, was extremely bitter, which I’ve had in falafel sandwiches before and tried to pick out, but I just let it go this time. And another ingredient had a very strong spice to it, not a hot spice, but a dominating flavor that rose to the top of everything else whenever you bit a piece. I couldn’t really tell everything that was in there, because the thing was so damn sloppy. I made the mistake of unwrapping the paper around it, and it just gave up, slumped over onto my tray spilling its contents everywhere like a drunken hobo who’s finally found a place to pass out. My plastic utensils and handful of napkins proved absolutely necessary. It was actually one of the most complexly flavored things I’ve eaten in a long time.
I don’t want to give the impression that the owner guy is a creep, he’s not, he checked on me to see how my meal was as well, and went out of his way, stopping what he was doing to say ‘thanks’ and ‘good bye’ when I got up to leave. He’s a good guy who wants people to feel comfortable in his restaurant and know that he appreciates their business. Which I do. It’s been nice seeing their transition from destitute construction site, to popular lunch time hang out.

Kien Giang

2010-08-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

Thursday August 5th 2010
Kien Giang, K & S Plaza, Charlotte Pike, Nashville, TN

My introduction to it was not in Philadelphia, but it was there that I ventured into the world of Pho. Ventured so deep in fact that eventually it became what I would classify as a habit. Trips quickly became bi-weekly, indulging in peaceful silence over a spa in a bowl. A hot and therapeutic food, the edible equivalent of hitting the steam room after getting a back massage with one of those absurd mud masks on. Cleansing. If I’d ever gone as far as to complete any type of exercise routine, I’d expect a rewarding feeling to follow, a feeling identical to the one experienced post Pho completion. Pho Ha in South Philly really was almost the sole thing that made moving to Nashville sound like a bad idea. How could we abandon it? What would we do without it? Research was done into the availability and quality of Pho in Nashville before a serious decision was made.

Kien Giang is in an elevated Asian themed shopping center on Charlotte Ave, not too far from my house. Of course we didn’t know how far it was from our house at first, because we ate there pretty much upon arrival in town, before a house had been secured. They call it prioritizing. With hopes set high, very high, I can only describe that visit as ‘sad’. I received a small bowl of Pho, truly small, not the cauldrons I was used to, with a murky broth, heavier flavors, overseasoned, and with skimpy portions. I’d had happier days. My desired feeling of elation was never achieved and continued to go unsatisfied for over one month, while my withdrawl symptoms grew in intensity, refusing to subsist.
A second chance was given. I ordered the large chicken Pho, a pair of vegetable spring rolls to share, and a Tiger Beer just to have some sort of consolation in the event I was again treated to a disappointment. I admired the decor: A wall mirror with a black outline of the New York City skyline, Twin Towers right in the center, with the dark silhouette of a Panther crossing in front of it all. Painfully visible bold numerals fastened to the walls next to each table, making it clear to everyone, the table numbering system they had put into place. And a television, broadcasting the show ‘Wipeout’.

After a slightly longer wait than expected (not to give them too hard a time, there was only one waiter after all), the Pho was finally delivered. Cautiously, apprehensively, I investigated the bowl. The chopsticks were sent in first for a quick probing of the contents. I brought the noodle nest up to the surface for closer inspection, shaking free a few trapped chunks of meat in the process. The portions looked alright, the broth was considerably clearer than before. Spoon in hand I went in for a taste, nervously expecting a salty, overly bouilloned liquid, begging for a re-heating. But then I found myself going back for a third taste, a fourth, until I was sucking down noodles and mixing in Sriracha just like I’d remembered. And the Tiger beer, what a treat. Beer and Pho is a combination I wasn’t used to with the liquor laws in Pennsylvania being so old fashioned and all, but if you think about it, it’s pretty obvious they’re going to go well together. The finer things usually do.
From what it looks like I’d caught them on an off day before. No one was really eating in there, the employees were all sitting around watching TV, the food sucked, and now it was pretty busy, the Pho was good. Now it ain’t no Pho Ha, but it’s an acceptable substitute that with time I’m sure I’ll learn to love just as much, but maybe in a different way.

Las Ricas Tortas

2010-08-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

Tuesday August 3rd 2010
Las Ricas Tortas, 4930 Linbar Dr, Ste #2, Nashville, TN

Has anyone noticed a recurring theme as of late, where my meals are barely able to be enjoyed because someone keeps slipping me a mickey of shocking heat, inhibiting my focus, leaving my attention no other place to fall? Well, if you haven’t, I sure have, and its getting old I tell you, old.
We set out to find Las Ricas Tortas, a place that had come recommended by a few co-working acquaintance types, with little knowledge of its location except that it was somewhere behind a Hooters. There was a little trouble finding it, driving up and down the same stretch of road, never quite making it as far as needed until we figured we’d gone too far in the wrong direction. Eventually I had to admit defeat and seek guidance from the technology possessed by the modern cell phone, which led us straight to Hooters.
What lay behind it though was not as we’d hoped, a big Las Ricas Tortas sign, a clear view of the building. Instead we were set loose in a maze of vacant industrial parks and dreary apartment complexes pulling u-turns, donuts, figure eights.
Once located, there was a moment where we reconsidered, and tried to decide if we really should go in or not. I don’t know how either of us expected it to look, but definitely not like this. Its bright, brand new sign, spelled out in wacky lettering was a deterrent, it reminded me of a Smoothie King, or an El Pollo Loco, or some other B level chain. But we’d come all this way with this place in mind, so we went in.

It was while waiting for my food when I made my first mistake. A trio of El Yucateco hot sauces were over on the side of our table. I’ll never forget this brand, because the first time I tried it I’d mistaken it for a much milder hot sauce I’d had somewhere else and proceeded to drown my taco in it, fully realizing my mistake moments later. One of the bottles, a variety I hadn’t seen before, came with a warning; XXX EXTREMELY HOT was written right on the label. This was odd to me, because the other kind that was so unforgiving to me before came with no such warning. I guess curiosity got the best of me, and I just had to try half a spoonful of it to see if they were serious. The moment the sauce rolled off the spoon and laid upon my tongue, it hit me, of course they were serious. Why would they be kidding? Further examination of the bottle revealed the phrase “Original Mayan Recipe”. Be careful of this stuff, it’s out there.
A pastor con queso torta especialle is what I had. Tortas are something I rarely order, this was maybe only my second time having one. I figured since it was in the name of the business, it was the thing to have. It proved to be alright, a rather average sandwich roll filled with seasoned pork that had a nice crisp and chew to it, large chunks of frying cheese, and minced jalapenos. What exactly did it I’m not sure, but halfway through the thing, yet again, I was floating aimlessly on another plane of thought, the heat turning knobs in my brain that were meant to be left alone. Was it the El Yucateco Mayan recipe? That seemed like it had warn off with the aid of my large horchata a good minute or two before I had actually started eating. Was it the jalapenos? Or the seasonings in the pork? Or the containers of sauces I had helped myself to at the sauce bar? I couldn’t tell you for sure, but there I was again spending my cash (I won’t say hard earned, it was earned quite leisurely), on food that creates an invisible sauna-like force field around my body, impenetrable to assistance, that only weakens with the passing of time. Looks like that’s how it is for me these days.
Based on the recommendations we’d received I expected more than what we got, not to say that it was a bad place, just average. It being a good distance from my house and regular stomping grounds, I don’t see it being a regularly visited place, but if I happened to find myself stranded on the side of I-24 by the Harding Place exit, or applying for a job at the Hooters, or looking for some sketchy focus group office inside one of those industrial parks, I’d probably swing in for something to eat.

International Market and Restaurant

2010-08-04T16:03:00.001-07:00

Saturday July 31st 2010
International Market and Restaurant, Belmont and Bernard, Nashville, TN

The place appeared to be closed when we showed up. I tugged at the door several times, to no avail. I could even swear I heard the clicking of a locked deadbolt hitting the doors frame as I pulled. We peered into the windows, searched for a list of hours, when without warning the door was flung open from within by a small Asian woman who struggled to keep it from slamming closed against the pressure and suction created by their enclosed entryway. “Try harder next time.”, She told me. A good general tip.
In the back of the second room, partially hidden by stacked boxes and overstocked storage, is their cafeteria. To get to it you pass through two areas of dining tables, walls decorated with bedazzled rooster cutouts and Thai tchotchkes, intermingled with various shelves and coolers, making up the market half of the business. The cafeteria set up is quite typical, bringing back memories of school, hospitals, maybe jail for some. The major differences being quality and type of food, and pleasant, attentive, helpful service, the kind you just don’t find at the previously mentioned places.
Many options to choose from. Lots of colored slops, impaled chunks of meat, darkened noodles. I ended up going with the Pad Wan Sen (a dish of thin noodles, bean shreds, chicken, and egg), the green curry chicken (with which the server managed to sell me some white rice, claiming that I “might need it”), a curried vegetable egg roll, and to ease it all in there I mixed myself up an Arnold Palmer at the soda fountain.

The Pad Wan Sen was an impulse selection which ended up being good, a little sweet, but good. It’s just that after starting in on the curry it became more of a retreat, a relaxing vacation home on my plate, a place to get away from all the stress at the office. Rather than a tasty dish I enjoyed at my leisure, it was only an antidote, it’s where I sought refuge.
Green curry, hot on its own, had added to it bamboo shoots, chicken, and the overkill addition of an unidentified hot green pepper cut up into slices, floating around on the top. I instantly became very aware of the shape of the inside of my mouth, it became highlighted by the heat and began to feel like a separate entity. I was spice high, stuck in a tunnel vision trance, my mouth became the sun with the rest of my body and mind revolving around it.
This resulted in the immediate decimation of the Pad Wan Sen and the white rice, the rice my server had been so right in suggesting. Each tiny piece of it, each neutrally flavored absorbent white sponge was necessary to my cure. Bless that rice! By the time I’d moved on to the curried vegetable egg roll, I couldn’t tell if it was spicy or if I had just permanently permeated my taste buds that way.
How over sweetened the lemonade and iced teas were made the Arnold Palmer more like a carnival dessert, reminiscent of a melted slushy, than a refreshing drink, but cold liquid of any kind was just about the only thing I had on my mind when I came to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to win this fight, and threw my gloves down with the curry bowl still a third full. A champion had been named and it certainly was not I. I sucked on left over ice cubes while I mixed up another foul drink at the counter, waiting for the cashier to stop screaming at someone in Thai in the back room so I could give her my 25 cents for the refill. I ended up just leaving it on the counter.
Did I enjoy myself here? Well, the place looks cool inside, its nice to hang out there, cafeteria dining is definitely a change of pace, I just cant help but think my American Yankee roots will need to be severed before something this spicy is a regular satisfying meal to me. Chicken fingers and grilled cheese were my meals of choice until my late teens, I kept it mild for a while, so what’s basically a soup of devastating seasonings does have its consequences.

Whitt's Barbecue

2010-07-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

Friday July 23rd 2010
Whitt’s Barbecue, Harding Pike at Harding Pl, Nashville, TN

On several occasions I’d heard Whitt’s referred to as “the worst barbecue in town”. It being a lowly local chain restaurant, guilty of cutting corners in favor of speedy service, in turn bastardizing a type of cooking with a religious following in these parts. A slogan like that isn’t something one comes by easily and it’s certainly not self-applied, meaning they earned it fair and square. Their reputation for failure and the sight of their “Wednesday is pork day!” marquee in my head, I was prepared for, maybe even hoping for some true unabashed culinary repugnance. What can I say, I was in the mood!
I’d noticed its proximity to my new workplace as I drove in on my first day, and after getting the run down of close by eateries from a co-worker (Krystal, Whitt’s, and the elegant Pineapple Room), Whitt’s seemed like the only choice. Anticipation formed within. I imagined myself biting into nasty chunk of mold, I imagined choking on little pieces of bone, and I imagined myself saying, “Well, they were right!”
There didn’t appear to be a sit down area, it was just a small booth type room and the gentleman behind the window was, for a southern boy especially, quick on the draw. He took my order seconds after I walked in, and I wasn’t even familiar with the menu. I’d been put on the spot, so I just took a glance and ordered the first things I saw. A pork sandwich and a turkey sandwich. Thinking fast, I noticed the sandwiches low price ($2.60 or so), and attributed the affordable cost not to exceptional value, but poor quality and measly size, and came to the decision to order two for hungers sake. We hadn’t even finished the monetary transaction process by the time they were ready.

Surprisingly the sandwiches weren’t that bad. Not to say they were good, it’s just that I’d built up such a realistic image in my mind of rotten meat, grease laden bread, and health code violating conditions, that to be served nothing more than a boring and uninspired bare bones barbecue sandwich was, in comparison, confusingly disappointing. The pork sandwich was really just a child size fist full of meat tossed between some buns, no sauce to speak of. I question wether the turkey was ever even actually barbecued or not, it seemed just like regular turkey, but at least they were kind enough to garnish this one with a pickle slice.
By nature barbecue is very slow food. You can throw something on a grill and leave it on there for hours and hours. Thus its popularity. It’s one of the few types of cooking where you can sit bobbing for beers in a kiddie pool with all your fat friends, alternating whose turn it is to rotate the meat slab. Hey, not like that people, you know what I mean. Which is why the idea of a fast barbecue place is just wrong. Not only because it diminishes the results of the food, but it takes the whole lengthy ceremonial aspect of barbecuing out of the equation, and I feel that’s just as important as the food.
I mean, I go to a barbecue joint on a lunch break, if the place is any good, I should be back at work at least a half hour late. Instead I’m back at work early sitting in the parking lot in Old Vanny with the AC blasting (because that’s all it will do) staring at the clock, chugging water to get the cheap pork taste out of my mouth. That is not how it should be.

El Amigo

2010-07-14T11:12:00.001-07:00

Tuesday July 13th 2010
El Amigo, 3901 Nolensville Pike, Nashville, TN

Chosen purely on appearance, El Amigo is a gas station that became possessed and slowly completely taken over by a Mexican restaurant. It’s very eye catching with the fueling station pillars acting as a carport and the mini mart cash register area now the restaurant. A brilliant transformation if I do say so myself. It was the look and the look alone that drew us to El Amigo out of the dozens of other taco trucks and restaurants on Nolensville, so many of which must be great places to eat and hang out, making this trip quite disappointing.
My hopes were set high, because for some reason I was really impressed with how they didn’t alter the typical gas station architecture of the building, decorating it to fit with the restaurant instead. After eating there and now that I’m actually writing it out, I realize that it isn’t actually that impressive.
It wasn’t until a couple minutes after we’d taken a seat and placed our orders that we couldn’t help but be bothered by a continuous tone being emitted, at a volume that couldn’t easily be ignored, from a surveillance camera positioned above our booth. We moved across the room, distancing the tone a bit, but introducing the colliding chatter of the dueling televisions into the mix. They were playing some type of Spanish soap opera in which one of the female characters was whining incessantly, awful nerve grating full grown adult whining. The televisions could not be tuned out, they were set perfectly at conversation inhibiting volume, and with two of them at opposite ends of the room the sound was doubled up in a thick layer, making the squeal of bad foreign acting impossible to ignore. Unpleasant right? Shortly after being served our food, someone, somewhere, decided they wanted to hear “House of the Rising Sun”, so of course they put it on. The stereo was quieter than the televisions, so in between heated arguments and throws of soap opera passion, when one character would be looking intently into the others eyes about to say something meaningful, the moment of possible silence was instead punctuated by the wailing and crooning of The Animals off in the distance, the video cameras high tone still audible over it all.

The arrival of the food symbolized the fact that we were one step closer to leaving, which at this point seemed to be more of the goal at hand than actually eating. I got a spicy pork gordita, and a roasted pork taco that ended up just being chicken. Normally I could put back these two items without any setbacks, I could even do it somewhat quickly. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being dangerously hungry, I would have put myself at a 7 on the drive over to El Amigo, maybe an 8 when we pulled up into the parking lot, but with the plates of hot food right in front of my face, fork in hand, light: green, I had somehow dropped to a 4 at best. This sensory assault, after filling my brain to capacity, must have moved on to my stomach.
Sluggishly I shoveled pieces of gordita into my mouth, chewing and swallowing lazily, without motivation. Also the food wasn’t particularly good, the gordita shell was wet with grease, it’s contents blended together into one bland mealy taste. All the dishes were served with a side of caramelized onions, which I thought was odd, and was hesitant to try after a third of a gordita, but actually they were good, the second best thing I had next to the horchata.
Uncertain of where to eat previous to all this, we wrote ‘Mexican’ and ‘Thai’ on two pieces of paper and I chose one, the Mexican one, which didn’t end up working out so well. Looks like we might have to discontinue that method of restaurant selection. If for some reason I ended up back at El Amigo, I would insist on getting it to go, and I would order a large horchata and a side of onions.

Bro's

2010-07-08T16:20:00.001-07:00

Wednesday July 7th 2010
Bro’s, 33rd and Charlotte, Nashville, TN

I’d noticed this place many times before, partly because of its dilapidated mansion appearance, and also because of its name; Bro’s, it’s a name that stands out. There were a lot of preconceived notions I had about the place that turned out to be incorrect. For example I thought that it might not be in business anymore. With the building set so far back from the road you could never get a look inside, and with all the cars parked in the back by the main entrance, it always looked like no one was there. I got kind of a creepy time share vacation lodge vibe from the place and never would have seen myself going in, but after receiving an invitation from my friend Bridget, their newly appointed waitress, again I thought about the blog and my readers, and decided to take her up on it.
Talking with Bridget about Bro’s I learned a couple things most diners might not know right off the bat. One being that the owners family name is Breaux, and they dumbed down the spelling a bit to make the restaurant more appealing, which in my opinion, as far as names go, works. And secondly I found out that one of the Breaux sons who works for the family business has a bit of a drinking problem and likes to stash whiskey in secret places around the restaurant to help him loosen up on the job. Good knowledge to have going into it I thought.
The place has many different levels and small rooms, kind of like a ship. It’s a little confusing to navigate, and all the tables are for parties of eight or more, so after wandering in one direction for a while, up and down various staircases, Val and I found ourselves at the far corner of one of the giant oval tables, right next to the kitchen entrance.
Noticing the Food Network logo placed next to certain dishes, Val discovered in the menu’s legend that the logo indicated a favorite meal of Guy Frieri, that obnoxious fat fashion biker dude from the television, from when he came to Bro’s for his little show. Coincidentally we had both ordered his recommendations, which made me not want to like it, but I couldn’t help it. Honestly I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it anyways, Cajun food is not something I’m very familiar with, at all, but my guess as to how it would be was pretty close. Actually the most surprising thing about it was that even though our table was literally right next to the kitchen, Bridget brought the food to us from upstairs.

We divided up our plates between the two of us, I having ordered Jambalaya and Val the fried catfish. My first time with Jambalaya surprisingly, but its generally a pretty familiar thing, spicy rice with roasted pork and homemade sausage mixed in, the meats were all excellent, but the dish could have been hotter temperature wise. The catfish was a little salty and my first bite too greasy, but once I got into it, I got into it. Bridget brought down a small bottle of hot sauce with a self adhesive sticker on it, where someone illegibly scribbled ‘jookla no’ on it, or something to that effect, and suggested I try it. Obviously I was being set up for a panic situation, but it would have been rude to decline the offer, so I extracted a microdot sized portion from the bottle and ate it on a fried potato. My suspicions confirmed. Hot sauce like that more closely resembles a physically and mentally crippling poison than a casual carefree condiment. It had me worried for a while there.
Bridget had been called upon to retrieve the substance abusing Breaux son from the “bank”, which was apparently his code word for liquor store, to conceal his addiction from the rest of the family. She seemed less than pleased and threatened to not go at all. This put a strain on the end of our meal, as she wanted to wait until we were done before getting him, but in fact the guy was out sitting on a curb somewhere baking in the sun dehydrating himself with alcohol. Taking everything into consideration, we wrapped it up, at this point far beyond full, secreting grease and spice in a steady stream of sweat, from a body eager to expel an overload of toxins. We paid under the watchful eye of an autographed Guy Frieri poster. “Now dats some good Cajun!” he had written next to his immaculately spiked bushel of bleach blonde hair.
“I just figured out why I cant ever remember your name!”, one of the cooks said to Bridget on her way out the door, “My best friend shot himself in the head right in front of me over a girl named Bridget. I must have gone and blocked it out of my head!”
Also, it says in the menu they have the capability to fry 70 turkeys at once here.

Taqueria Tex Mex

2010-07-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

Thursday June 24th 2010
Taqueria Tex Mex, Charlotte Pike, Nashville, TN

Having spent the entirety of the previous day hurtling forwards at 70 miles per hour from Providence all the way to Nashville, I was a little jittery and out of focus by the time I arrived. My thoughts weren’t forming properly, I’d developed a stutter, and I needed several rounds of what ended up being Budweiser to bring me back to a familiar mental state. In the morning I was rudely awakened far earlier than I had hoped by a call from a Vanderbilt psychology student trying to schedule me for a computer test. Immediately afterwards I was off to look at a prospective home, and that’s when it sunk in; I moved to Nashville.
Still shaking off my phantom movement sensations and Budweiser brain dent, despite a couple hours of couch rest and substantial iced coffee intake, I decided post house viewing that some food was in order. Crom did his best to maneuver his shapely figure into any available crevasse of space in the tightly packed and hermetically sealed Old Vanny, who naturally held up well under less than ideal conditions (as I knew she would), and from there we set off up Charlotte Pike straight to the Tex Mex taco truck.
Tex Mex is a term that rubs me the wrong way. Take the “Tex” out and then we’re talking. But hey, a burrito’s a burrito right? Wrong. Because apparently, this, this right here, believe it or believe it not, is a Burrito. I know exactly what your thinking, “That is most certainly not a burrito.”, and I’m just not too sure what to tell you.

Their menu lists all the items in Spanish with the English term in a smaller font underneath, and right under ‘Pirata’ it said ‘Burrito’, so I ordered a Pastor Pirata. Dazed, hungry, and in no type of detective mood, the malformation and possible complete mix up of my burrito initially went unnoticed, but the oddity of it slowly began to sink in.
“Is this the burrito?”, I asked Crom. He nodded yes. “What did you get?”, I asked him after noticing his plate.
“Two Quesadillas.”, he responded. I had asked, because the similarities in appearance between our two dishes were many. The only difference really being that his Quesadillas were smaller than my burrito. Crom then pointed out the lack of beans, rice, and lettuce in my burrito, but how it didn’t matter anyways, seeing as how those things are cheap “filler food”, that you could easily throw together at home. “Is there cheese in there?”, he asked. I peeled back the tortilla like so, revealing a good portion of cheese. “Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t.”, he told me, “I’m not sure what part of Mexico these people are from.”

It now being obvious that Pirata is just some “Tex-Mex” style term indicating the large size of a Quesadilla, Quesadilla indicating regular or medium, and Taco (granted the tacos are served on flour tortillas) the small size, the menu here suddenly shrunk considerably.
All nit picking, ingredient listing, and contour examination aside, my jumbo Quesdailla was good. Chewy chunks of seasoned pork, sliced avocado, onions, cilantro, all melded together with a handful of cheese and topped with a delicious and spicy orange colored sauce. Wether it was a Burrito or not ceased to trouble me once I began eating it. Maybe I’d been expecting something a little bit different, but I learned long ago that you take what you can get from places like this. Places that despite having a store front restaurant location, opt for running the business out of a truck in the parking lot.

Restaurant Mexico Garibaldi

2010-07-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

Wednesday June 16th 2010
Restaurant Mexico Garibaldi, Atwells and Mount Pleasant, Providence, RI

It occurred to me recently that despite having spent the bulk of my life in this city I have almost no knowledge of good cheap places to eat here. Someone texted me recently, asking where they should go out to eat in Providence. Annoyed that they would ask me a question that would obviously entail a more lengthy answer than I would care to type into the keypad on my phone, I was in no real rush to answer, but with the question fresh in my mind I pondered it, coming up blank. I blame this on the fact that during the adult part of my life spent here, I rarely had any type of gainful employment and would keep a white knuckle grip on any loose change I had around, refusing to spend very much money at all on food. This was made possible by the close proximity of my parents house and my preference, taste and price wise, to the wonderful food that was cooked there. Beneficial at the time, most certainly, but troublesome now.
I was assisting my Dad in scraping paint off the metal handrails of a near by home, when we decided a lunch break was in order. He suggested we go to a place called Three Gringo’s, and I at first didn’t object, stunned by the fact that someone would basically name their restaurant ‘several white guys trying to make Mexican food’. Several hints were thrown out on the drive to hopefully steer us away from what would surely be somber disappointment, and luckily this ‘Mexico’ restaurant caught my Dad’s eye and thats where we went.
With the old man picking up the check, more items were ordered than usual. We had a spread of chips and refried beans, a bowl of guacamole, varieties of salsas, I doubled up on horchata’s. Unexpectedly it became one of the few several course meals I’ve ever participated in, myself ordering both a taco and a gordita, and my Dad ordering both a gordita and a burrito. It was a lunch no one held back on.

My chicken taco wasn’t exceptional or anything, but it was good, the chicken very moist and seasoned well, wrapped up with some onions and cilantro. The gordita, topped with spicy pork, was amazing, just loaded up with meat, cheese, vegetables, sour cream. Wonderful and cheap, the gorditas being only about $2.50 and the taco’s a dollar less. I felt kind of like I’d ripped myself off having lived in an apartment only about 2 blocks from here for like 9 months, wrapping up little pieces of cheese in store bought dough and under frying it on the stove, eating a plate of those with a double batch of ramen...and that was on a good day! When if I’d tried just even a little bit harder I could’ve been immersed in a platter of Mexican wonder food just around the corner. I’ve come a long way I suppose.
Having tried then and again in more recent years, two or three other Mexican places in Providence, I would say this one is the best, especially when you take the price into consideration. We did our best to clean up the bean and chip plate and guac bowl, but we’d overestimated how much we’d need to have a lunch that would fill us up nicely, but allow the job at hand to still inch its way towards completion. My Dad especially, having tackled both the burrito and gordita.
I just moved out of Philly, so I promise I won’t make these nagging comparisons anymore, but I mean if a place like Providence, Rhode Island can have an awesome cheap Mexican place, how is it that giant city like Philadelphia can’t? Something is very wrong down there and I’m happy to have removed myself from the situation.

Q and Q Live Poultry Market

2010-06-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 5th 2010
Q and Q Live Poultry Market, 12th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia, PA

I know I don’t usually put up entries about markets, but I will be getting more into that granted the market deserves to be written about, which this one definitely does. I first noticed it while I was walking down Spring Garden one day, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I was hit with a wall of animal stench, pet store style. My senses had been taken by surprise and I glanced through the open door to my right, I was still walking so I only saw what I saw for a couple seconds, but it felt much much longer. It was a blur of feathers, wings, people awkwardly reaching out with stretched arms trying to clutch a loose bird, cacophonous squawking, water, a mix of languages, total and complete chaos. A few steps past I stopped and stood motionless for a moment to let my thoughts settle into place, let my internal sense maker process all that properly. I went back and stood out front to get a better look. Just madness, nothing more nothing less. A room full of animals not so patiently awaiting their dinner plate fates and a few people struggling to make it work. Quite the scene.
Originally having planned the second 24 hour barbecue for this day (more on that later), but changing our minds, we hung around Rick’s house thinking maybe a little practice grill session was in order before we started the big 24 hour one. Talking about grilling, talking about food, we somehow stumbled upon the topic of killing your own meat. Everyone seemed to agree that it would be an important thing to do, to have the experience of killing the animal you’ll eat, as a reminder of where our food comes from, and to not take it for granted.
Before I knew it we were all packed into Robert’s car headed straight for the Q and Q poultry market. We laughed about how humorous it would be on the drive back, with the five of us all crammed into this tiny car trying to control a wild chicken, in the back of my mind thinking how disturbing and sloppy this potential kill was going to be. I imagined the first attempt not taking, setting everyone into panic mode as an injured bird flopped about the back yard in pain, none of us having any clue how to efficiently and humanely put it out of its misery, let alone clean and prepare it afterwards.
It was pretty hard to get anyone’s attention in this place. English was not the preferred language. The guy who was hosing the place down and squeegeing the excess water into the drain in the center of the floor couldn’t help me. The woman behind the counter directed me to another woman, she was the one who was really working the magic. Grabbing a bird out of the cage with one hand, tying its feet to the scale, weighing it as the bird dangled upside down flapping about in confusion. “No kill, no sell.”, she told me, crushing our dreams of finally stepping into adulthood, secretly relieving all of us greatly.

We ordered one “Young Chicken” at $2 a pound, which came out to about $10 bucks. “This one?”, she asked, pointing to the first one in the cage. We nodded and watched as she dragged it away, seemingly against it’s will, past the ‘employee only’ sign, back into what I assume is the ‘killing room’. There was a morbid silence as we waited, knowing we’d just singled out one unlucky bird and sentenced it to death, pretty much just out of boredom on our part. A few minutes later she appeared with a plastic grocery bag with noticeable weight in it, she opened it up, glanced inside, and then called our number. We paid and left with the plucked carcass of the young chicken that was clucking about before us only moments ago, crudely stuffed into the bag.

Seeing how amateurish Rick’s preparation techniques were, as he basically damaged the meat and mutilated the body with a series of equally dull blades, I couldn’t have been happier that we weren’t faced with a living creature to take care of. We probably wouldn’t have killed it, maybe just let it go in the Wawa parking lot or something, ordered a sandwich inside.
Some hot dogs had been put on the grill first which cooked normally without any snags, but as soon as the chicken meat was on there, the flames shot up, completely engulfing the chicken and they didn’t soon subsist. I would dare call this chicken, ‘overdone’. Once the blackened shell was scraped off, the inner meat was kind of alright, tender, probably once juicy, but now quite dry.

We wanted to think we were tough enough to take the life of an innocent young chicken and have ourselves a feast, but in reality it wasn’t even possible for us to cook one correctly. We’re Americans god damn it! It’s 2010! What business do we have killing anything anyways? Someone else will do it for you for a small fee. The cave ages have passed, humanity has found new ways. In closing I would like to thank the woman from Q and Q for knowing how to spot a gang of goofballs (it couldn’t have been that hard), and stop them from taking a Saturday afternoon joke too far.

Mike's Kitchen

2010-06-07T11:18:00.001-07:00

Friday June 4th 2010
Mike’s Kitchen, Randall and Atwood, Cranston, RI

VFW halls can serve many a purpose. They act primarily as a congregation spot for veterans of past wars, a place where they can be amongst their people, sharing their combat stories, without the distractions of someone who wouldn’t understand. But then they also seem to be fine with renting the place out to some high school kid who wants to have a punk show, they might do a flea market in one, or in this case open an Italian restaurant.
With only this small vague sign hung in the window as an advertisement that there’s a restaurant inside, you think business would be slow. Even if you did happen to notice the sign just passing by the place, it doesn’t exactly do a lot to draw you in, but word of mouth has apparently spread, because the place is packed! Parking lot completely full, the cramped dining room totally jammed with people. People of all ages too, not just elderly shell shocked veterans smoking through their tracheotomies.

I tried a few bites of my Dad’s stuffed Quahog. This was the first time I’d had Quahog and up until this point despite being a native Rhode Islander, I had no idea what one was, which didn’t do a lot for my local pride with the Quahog being the punch line to a lot of regional jokes that up until now had gone right over my head. It was enlightening to learn, having spent so many years in the darkness when all I had to do was ask. Basically it’s just a giant clam, apparently this is quite a small one here, and when served stuffed its all minced up with seasonings and some type of bread crumb stuffing and then put back into the shell. Not bad.
My main course was the grilled sausage and pickled pepper sandwich, which was served with, well, just that. The peppers were most certainly pickled, someone had given them a real vigorous no holds barred pickling quite some time ago I would imagine. A bite with the combination of the sausage and peppers was great, two opposing flavors meshing nicely, but when my teeth would miss the sausage completely and I had a mouth full of bread and pickled pepper, oh boy was I in trouble. Each crunchy chomp would release another searing blast of shockingly tart juice, involuntarily contorting my facial expressions while I chewed and swallowed. I would yearn for that sausage. Eventually I was forced to remove some of the peppers, they had been quite generous with them, but the ratio of the two ingredients needed to be equal if I was going to enjoy myself, and with time I did.

A lot of traditional classic Italian dishes were served here. A lot of veal, a lot of interesting pasta and meat combinations. And if I couldn’t tell it was a serious place by reading the menu, the presence of the older gentleman who sat in the corner, leaned back in his chair, empty plate before him, hands flat on the table while his head went slowly from side to side, surveying the room, confirmed it. I had reservations about having something as heavy as the pasta for lunch, right before I would return to the relentless sun and the door whose paint needed removing, but next time I think I’ll go for it and see what happens.

Donuts Plus

2010-05-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 22nd 2010
Donuts Plus, 44th and Chestnut, Philadelphia, PA

I don’t make it over to West Philly too much. It’s almost like a different city than my neighborhood, and the traffic involved in going that way rarely justifies your reason for being there. But on those rare occasions when I do find myself in that part of the city, even just sort of close to that part of the city, I make it a point to hit up Donuts Plus.
Sharing a shopping center with an army recruitment center, laundromat, pornographic video store, African restaurant, and head shop, people don’t usually take me seriously when I tell them what an amazing place Donuts Plus is. They just shrug it off. To me Donuts Plus is a symbol of purity, a ray of hope and decency cast upon a city that needs just that, and when I think about Philly, no joke, Donuts Plus is one of the first things that comes to my mind. Their specialty is obviously donuts, but this is the first place I noticed the entrepreneurial Philly business style of taking something like a donut business and branching it out in as many directions as you could go. It’s part vintage arcade, water ice stand, hot dog shop, mini mart, and coffee shop. You get a calling card for Ghana and some Advil with your coffee and donut.
What impressed me so much about this place when I first came in back in 2003, was the price and the quality. My combination of items, which I’ve come to refer to as “The Deluxe” is a large iced coffee ($1.50), plain bagel with cream cheese ($1.00), and Boston creme donut ($.60), totaling $3.10. This is with the recent price increase included, it used to be .75 cents for the bagel and cream cheese, but even a dollar can’t be beat anywhere else. Not only is all this stuff super cheap, but its actually good. You might think a donut is just a donut, and these are definitely classic regular donuts, but they’re fresh and moist, with just the right amount of creme inside. The bagels are good and chewy, maybe they could use a little bit more cream cheese, but at least they don’t go overboard with it, and you do get what you pay for. The coffee normally wouldn’t be anything special, I don’t know what kind it is, but I’m sure its some store bought drip machine brand, which with my coffee snobbery increasing isn’t the kind of thing I’m into at all these days, but it feels right drinking it in this situation. The size of the coffee has a lot to do with it, being served in a to-go soup container with a straw hole scissored into the lid.
The first time I came to Philly after being a proud new owner of Old Vanny, my beloved van, a total Cinderella moment happened as I sat in the drivers seat, put my bag of donuts and bagels on the floor and with my right hand placed the gigantic oversized coffee right into the cup holder. It fit perfectly, snugly, right into the cup holder. I sat and admired the sight of it, basking in a moment of true perfection, feeling good about life. Nothing could have been more meant to be. I don’t mean to get all emotional on you, but that was a special day for me.
Whereas I think working in the pizza truck would be a fun job, I could easily see getting real depressed working in a strip mall donut shop, but that’s not how it is. It’s run by an Asian family, the male workers sometimes seem indifferent, but the mother and daughter team are constantly smiling, enjoying their work. I’m sure there’s been times where I didn’t get to go to Donuts Plus for a full year, maybe even more, and yet they remember me, and have a vague recollection of what I like to get.
“It’s been a while.”, she said to me as I walked in. I couldn’t help but agree, it had been a couple months at least. I ordered the bagel first, knowing it would take a little time for them to toast it. “Iced coffee..?”, she was trying to remember everything included in The Deluxe. I nodded. “No sugar right?”, correct you are. It’s a professional operation they got going on here.
Sipping my coffee, eating my bagel, munching my donut, experiencing all these wonderful pleasures at once, I thought back to the pizza truck, how they acted like jerks, tried to steal my change, gave me a crap product, and bestowed some of the suckyness of their lives upon mine, and I realized how a place like Donuts Plus actually should be the same way. That’s why it’s a real gem. You walk into a dismal looking donut shop next to the laundromat, expectations set real low, prepared to be spit on and screamed at, and instead you get some nice people giving you good things, things you want, at an exceptionally reasonable price. If these people can do it, why can’t everyone else?
Donuts Plus should be a business role model, it’s something to respect and look up to, they care, they take pride in what they’re doing, and unfortunately they’re outnumbered by places with the opposite approach. They do what they do well, and I can’t imagine with too great a reward at the end of the day, yet they keep at it. I know it might sound silly, but this is truly one of my favorite places in the entire world, and I feel that no visit to Philadelphia could be complete without stopping in to check it out, if for no other reason than to guarantee yourself one positive experience during your stay.

The Pizza Truck

2010-05-30T11:08:00.001-07:00

Thursday May 20th 2010
The Pizza Truck, Memphis and Sergeant, Philadelphia, PA

Shortly before I moved up to Philly my friend Davey (the same one with the wise words about Plaza Pizza) told me about a pizza truck, like an ice cream truck except with pizza, that drives around North Philly selling slices. Naturally I was amazed, excited, and eager to flag it down and scoop a couple slices.
“How’s their pizza?”, I asked him.
“It sucks!”, he was blunt about it. “It’s so bad, but every time you hear that bell your like ‘oh shit, pizza truck!’ and you gotta grab a slice.”
I’d passed up many opportunities, watching it pass down my street, hearing them ringing their little bell from up in my room, never actually stopping them and trying it out. I mean, the review I’d heard wasn’t the best.
Freshly home from the Log/Mag U.S. tour I was driving home from the grocery store, and abiding by the law I came to a complete stop at the intersection of Memphis and Sergeant. And who would have the right of way? Who’s turn was it at the stop sign? The pizza truck. From the drivers seat I got a good full view of the whole thing as it slowly passed in front of me. This is the time, this is the place. I grabbed a parking spot down the block and ran back up the road. Luckily a couple yokels had already flagged it down, so I got in line behind them.
My order for one slice was placed with the crabby old lady who runs the operation, and evidently isn’t enjoying herself very much. The way she threw the slice in the oven was with such disrespect for the food, that even if it had been a tasty slice of pizza before, it wasn’t going to be now. Her negative energy and abuse tactics were most certainly going to translate right into my dining experience.
“Can I help you?”, her co-worker asked me in the type of tone you would use to address someone urinating on your front steps, apparently having missed the exchange between the woman and I. I didn’t respond. I don’t understand how these people could have been so bummed out. Your in a giant truck, just driving around, making pizzas. To me, it sounds like a lot of fun. Make a sharp turn, pizzas go flying across the truck. You don’t even actually have to stop if someone flags you down, you could just keep going, it really sounds like an enjoyable job to me.
After a good minute and a half heat up she handed me my slice, said a quick thanks, and turned her back. This slice was $1.50 and I’d given them $2, no change had been received. Did they assume they’d be getting tipped? For this nonsense?
“Hey.” I said in my most authoritative voice, standing there outside the truck, holding my sad piece of pizza. “Fifty cents.” She grabbed a couple coins and handed them to me, no excuse, no apology, it wasn’t a mistake, they were trying to rob me. And they basically did for the $1.50 that I paid. Look at this joke. The shape of the cheese shreds is still visible after cooking, meaning they’re using some really low grade stuff.

I ate it in two bites, and don’t get me wrong, it was terrible, but I just felt indifferent about it after eating it, like as soon as I was done with it I didn’t even have a memory of it. I think if your going to make good pizza, then good for you, do it well, but if your going to make bad pizza, and trust me those people know they’re making bad pizza, then do it right, make it one to remember, make it so disgusting that at least people will be talking about it. This was just bland, boring, I guess the best word to describe it would be ‘stupid’. I ate a totally dumb slice of pizza.

Tudor's Biscuit World

2010-05-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Monday May 17th 2010

Tudor’s Biscuit World, 4116 First Ave, Nitro, WV

We’d been driving in silence for a couple hours by the time Noah leaned over from the back seat and asked if I was getting hungry yet.
“Yes.”, I told him, “I am.” The “meatbag” our newly college graduated friends had shared with us the night before in Lexington at their no-mess no-grills barbecue was no longer powering me like I needed it to.
“Well, take the Nitro exit then, it should be coming up soon.”
“They got something good there?”, I asked. He stuttered a bit and emitted a few odd sounds, searching for the proper words to explain to me what was going to happen.
“Tudor’s Biscuit World.”, he eventually got out. “That’s where we’re going.” The man had a serious plan, and this wasn’t the first I’d heard of it. He’d mentioned it a week or so back, “We gotta go to Tudor’s Biscuit World when we’re in West Virginia.”, he spoke longingly of it, and it being his native state, his turf, I wasn’t about to interfere.
Inside, I started reading the menu from the left, browsing through average breakfast plate selections, nothing too special. I was trying to figure out how much I wanted to eat and how much I wanted to spend. Would some scrambled eggs and some toast be enough? It was when I heard Noah order something with a name along the lines of “The Mountaineer”, that I realized I must have been looking at the wrong part of the menu. That’s when I discovered the breakfast biscuit sandwich section.
“The Mountaineer” describes a breakfast sandwich that is brave, tough, satisfying, a real mans sandwich. When I heard the name I imagined a cross between Conan the Barbarian and the guy from Brawny paper towels eating a whole one in a single bite and then just slamming an axe clear through a log, effortlessly. That’s how I knew it probably wasn’t the sandwich for me. It was the one below it that was really catching my eye, “The Thundering Herd”. With a name like that, a lot could go wrong.
A confusing number system had been implemented where once you ordered they’d give you a tray and a tent shaped green card with a number on it, which presumably you would either leave at the edge of your table so they’d know where to bring the food, or you could trade it back to them when they called the number as proof you actually ordered and paid. Regardless, I didn’t get one, so I stood in the aisle next to our table for a little bit, waiting to see if they’d bring it by. Awkwardly the waitress and I locked into several avant-dance routines as I, being in an inconvenient place, accidentally ended up blocking her every time she tried to squeeze by to deliver some food and then get back into the aisle.
The delivery of my “Thundering Herd” came with great relief. Well, relief that it came. For some reason I was expecting it to bear some resemblance to a volcano, a biscuit tower spewing molten breakfast unmentionables across the whole plate. Instead it looked like this; a sloppy sausage, egg, and cheese, biscuit with the exciting addition of a hash brown patty. I sneered when I saw it, believing myself capable of easily housing two, but it only took a couple bites for me to retract my initial opinion and realize that I was in deep this time. What I was messing with was no joke, no sir. I think my ‘at the moment’ review was, “The Thundering Herd is kind of intense.”, to which Jeremy nodded in agreement, maybe in a comatose state from having just finished his.
It was the hash brown patty that really took it over the edge, because we’re not talking the kind of hash browns that actually resemble potatoes, we’re talking the kind that are just like a puck shaped grease sponge that by chance happened to be made with potato products, comparable to eating a regular breakfast sandwich with a slab of hot Vaseline in it.
By the end my insides were slick, coated in a thick grease layer that I could tell would take some time to wear away. We weren’t a talkative bunch that day, before Tudor’s and especially not after. I sought solace in this wreath that had been pleasantly tacked up by our table. Tudor’s Biscuit World, a West Virginia treat.

Betty's Bar and Grill

2010-05-20T13:52:00.001-07:00

Saturday May 15th 2010
Betty’s Bar and Grill, 49th and Charlotte, Nashville, TN

Betty’s Bar and Grill is a lot of things. It’s side patio serves as home to a couple dozen feral cats who survive off ranch dressing sides, food scraps, and sips of beer donated by the customers. In the daytime it serves as a NASCAR viewing destination for the crowd of early drinking Tennesseeans. And at night the youth in training pour in for pool and an at times strange combination of traditional and experimental music. The first time I came here, back when I lived in town, I looked over the drinks and decided to go with “Betty’s Bitchin’ Brew”, for two reasons: 1- I’d never tried that beer before, 2- it was the cheapest. As I sipped it I thought, “Wow, this beer is total garbage.”, which for $1.50 is pretty much what I expected, I just found it strange that a small bar in West Nashville would take the time to brew their own swill or ‘pinche’ as I’ve heard it called. Once I thought about it for a minute and realized how ridiculous and unreasonable that was I asked the bartendress what it actually was.
“Oh, it’s Natty Light.”, She responded. It’s funny that they changed the name of the beer in the first place, but what’s even funnier is that I would never in a million years spring for a Natty Light in any bar or in any store, but every time I’m at Betty’s that’s what I get, and I don’t like it at all, but for some reason the name switch makes it a little more tolerable.
When this town was my home and trips to Betty’s were a little more frequent than I would have cared for, I never tried the food. Something about the overwhelming amount of swimsuited beer model posters and haze of cigarette smoke just didn’t get my appetite going. It wasn’t until my second return to town, when two good friends of mine, Crom and Leslie, had taken over the night shift, that I decided to go for it and have a burger. Crom, despite being a self proclaimed ‘man of leisure’ with a Ferris Bueller poster to prove it, can really get crazy in the kitchen. You’ll be sitting on the porch together for an hour in complete silence and then suddenly he’s serving you a plate of Fettuccini Alfredo with turkey meat balls. He’s got some tricks. The burger was for lack of a better term, insane. I instructed him to put ‘everything’ on it, which he did, and when I came to an hour later after a sudden full body incapacitation, I was ready to start hitting those “Bitchin’ Brews”, and knew very well that food would not be necessary for quite some time.
This time around Leslie made me one. To get a little shit started I told Crom, “Leslie said she makes a better burger than you.” Initially he shrugged it off, but came back at me a couple minutes later.

“Was that a direct quote? ‘I make a better burger than Crom.’, did she say that?”
My burger came cut in half like so (I apologize for the darkness of the pictures, it’s not the kind of place where bright lights would go over well), and I showed the cross section to Crom to get an opinion on how the meat was cooked.
“Where’s the pink?”, he said, “I don’t see any pink. Show me the pink!” He continued on, referring to how the burger was, not over done, but thoroughly cooked whereas he prefers and makes for everyone who orders one, a medium rare. I offered him a bite, which he at first declined, but then I insisted suggesting he try it to see how he felt. “Where’s the meat juice?”, he added. I proposed a throwdown, but neither party seemed interested. Or were they just scared?
Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the “Lazlo Burger”. It might not have been as juicy as Crom’s, but it was lighter, which I was glad about because there aren’t many good places to lay down at Betty’s. After letting it settle for a few moments a feeling of pure triumph washed through me, and again I had the intuition that eating would not need to be done again for a long while, and truth be told it carried me through the long night, my slumber, all the way up to our mid afternoon breakfast.

Garduno's

2010-05-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 15th 2010
Garduno’s, Cherokee and Iowa, St Louis, MO

I awoke next to a piece of art, a sculpture we had collaborated on the night before. Carefully, a mountain bike had been placed amongst a pile of overturned chairs, blankets draped haphazardly over certain sections. It was nearing 2PM. Slowly the others woke up and we straightened up the van in preparation for our drive to Nashville.
“We need to get a stuffed sopapilla.”, Jeremy told me, his face and neck decorated with multi color marker smears, dreaming of the New Mexican gut bombs we had enjoyed several days before. Neither of us had tried a stuffed sopapilla previous to this trip, and were worried that maybe it was a regional specialty and we’d have to wait til we were back in Albuquerque to have another. We asked last nights host if she knew where we could find some.
“Yeah, stuffed sopapilla’s, you can get those right down the street. Yeah, the ice cream.”, she told us. Our excitement faded rapidly into confusion. Ice cream? “Sopapilla, yeah it’s a dessert with ice cream.” Something was very wrong, so we set sail to Garduno’s to get to the bottom of it. Jeremy was out of the van and in the restaurant before anyone else, face to technicolor face with the owner, trying to get a few things clarified.
“I had a sopapilla with meat in it in New Mexico. Is that crazy?”, he told the man. And the man nodded yes, confirming our fears that in Missouri sopapilla’s come with ice cream and not beans and cheese. “Well”, Jeremy carried on, “can I get one with chorizo instead of ice cream?”
“You want sopapilla with chorizo?”, the man asked in total disbelief. And upon confirmation, he drifted back into the kitchen prepared to give some special and apparently confusing orders to the cooks. Noah and I sat in a booth with Jeremy perusing through some menu’s, most items were in the $8 and up range, which at this point in the trip wasn’t much of an option. The guy came back over to clear a few things up. “So, you want just chorizo? No lettuce, tomato, sour cream right?”
“No, I’d like it with everything.”, Jeremy let him know.
“With everything?”, he double checked, shocked.
“How much is that?”, I inquired.
“$3.95?”, he sort of guessed.
“Well, I’ll have one too.”, I placed my order.
“Yeah, me too.”, Noah chimed in.
“You all want the sopapilla with chorizo?”, his mind = fried, as the whole table agreed that’s what we’d be eating.

These differed greatly from the ones in Albuquerque. Those ones were more like a thick pocket that held all the slop inside, the bread would tear nicely. The bread on these ones was deep fried creating a tough shell (no longer bread at all really) which would break with contact and had all the ingredients piled on top. Definitely a utensil meal, not something you eat on the go.
“Whats so weird about this?”, I wondered aloud.
“Are you kidding me,” Jeremy answered, “this is like asking for a hot dog in an ice cream cone!”, and then I got it, that would be weird. I’m not opposed to the idea, but I guess if some Spanish guy came into a place where I worked and was like, “Yeah, I’ll have the hot dog, but put it in a waffle cone. Yes, with mustard please.”, I would have to double check with him. We ate, enjoyed it, and left to the strange looks and laughter coming from every other person in the place. Just another day of waking up in the afternoon, hanging out with a marker faced man, and butchering traditional cuisine.

Gas Station Special

2010-05-20T08:36:00.001-07:00

Friday May 14th and Saturday May 15th 2010
GAS STATION SPECIAL
Mobil On The Run, Rolla, MO
Pilot Travel Center, Paducah, KY

Gas station meals can be a hard road to walk down, but sometimes out on the ol’ road like this you might be running late for the show and there are few other options. You gotta take a deep breath, prepare to get a little crafty, and jump into the situation no matter how dismal it may seem.
Maybe you just don’t care, your into it, and you stroll through those doors all tough, walk right to the back of the room, and straight up barehanded you grab a greasy, foamy, rotating cave age hot dog out the ‘grill’, slap it between those buns, and you start chomping. Or maybe eating healthy is on your mind. That’s when you really gotta get clever. Very few even pseudo-healthy items can be found at a gas station. A V-8, some granola bars, an old withering piece of fruit, that’s generally about the best you’ll do in most situations.
Occasionally you might be lucky enough to pull into the one usually unassuming gas station that actually cares and went the extra mile. They’ve got decent somewhat fresh sandwiches, loaves of bread, cheese, real fruit, maybe they’re selling fried chicken at the counter or something. That’s a rare and glorious situation that I believe deserves a moment of silence as a show of appreciation, because you usually end up encountering places like this just when Pop Tarts started to sound like a viable dinner option, then your face to face with a turkey sandwich and some grapes and you realize how far gone you were for a minute there. Total reality check.
This On The Run mart we stopped at on the way to St Louis...well, at least they tried. A lot of places will have some nasty egg salad sandwich in the cooler sealed in a plastic box, I never trust those. On The Run had a nice center display cooler with a lot of different sandwiches all wrapped up. Granted they were wrapped up in paper so you couldn’t see them, which I should have taken as a hint, but I was starving and must have convinced myself it would have been ok. I considered the Italian sub, but decided on the spicy chicken and cheese sandwich for only $1.50, then I saw that chicken biscuits had been marked down from .99 cents to .50 cents. Naturally, I doubled up, because sometimes I’ve expected the worst from these things and then gotten a special treat, you never can tell with these places.

I should have known better and eaten the 50 cent chicken biscuit first, because I might not have noticed how bad it was, and then the spicy with cheese would have been this incredible delicacy, but I switched it up, finishing and not being disgusted by the spicy sandwich, and then being simply repulsed by the biscuit. Here I am almost a week later writing about it and its putrid taste flushed back into my mouth at the mere mention of it, now I’m going crazy on pretzels and water trying to get rid of it. I resold my remaining 2/3rds of it at full cost to Rick, who proceeded to read the ingredient list to me. After too many initial ingredients he finally got to “...chicken breast, seasoning...”, but he said it in a way that I didn’t catch the presence of the comma, and briefly thought and found it completely feasible that there was only the flavor of chicken breast in this and no actual meat. I inquired and there turned out to be a comma, but the placement of ‘chicken breast’ in the overall list was still a little disturbing.

Next day, same awful situation. Drifting around a price gouged Pilot Travel Center in dreary Paducah, Kentucky, uncertain of why we stopped the van in the first place. I looked at the donuts for a while, I glanced over the drinks, but when you think about it there isn’t really a point to getting either of those things. I had my eye on the dogs. I didn’t want it there, but that’s where it was. And I figured I’d go for the gusto and really prove a point with this one, so I grabbed a cheddar cheese infused bratwurst, loaded it up with the most watery ketchup I may have ever had a dealing with, and then hit the fixin’s, hooking myself up with sauerkraut, tomato chunks, onions, and banana peppers. Knowing a cleansing would be necessary after this beast, I picked up a real banana as well, hoping it would act as an antidote and counteract the poisons.
“You know hot dogs are two for $2 dollars right?”, The lady cashier informed me.
“Yeah, that’s alright.”, I told her.
“Well they’re $1.50 separately. You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m ok.”
“And banana’s too, those are 2 for a dollar...”, Christ lady! You want me to eat this ‘meal’ twice?! I did that yesterday! This is sheer madness. But I’ll be honest, as long as you didn’t look at it too much, the brat was pretty awesome, and the banana did help me feel normal again afterwards.

El Modelo

2010-05-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

Wednesday May 12th 2010
El Modelo, 1715 2nd st, Albuquerque, NM

Post show, post bar, post unsuccessful attempt to find an open and functioning taco truck, we sat at the Mexican church turned underground performance venue where we played, eating peanut butter and kale sandwiches while our host Raven drew a detailed map of Albuquerque, directing us to El Modelo on our way out of town. We pulled a little bit of the ol' "Vulture Style" when he left, raiding the pantry of microwave popcorn and some sort of pasta salad mix which I was unable to stay awake for.
The morning brought an unwelcome chatter of cell phone alarm clocks, all of which were set to snooze several times before the gang was awake, aimlessly wandering the room in a groggy shuffle. We vultured some coffee, loaded up the gear, and split to get some food for the ten hour drive ahead of us.
Raven's map was full of a lot of nice details and notes, but lacked in accuracy. Where 2nd st was supposed to curve, it dead ended. Where we were supposed to turn on 1st st, it was one way in the opposite direction. Eventually, when we did find it, the Maryland license plates on the van drew quite a bit of attention from the regulars, in particular, one man.
"Where you guys from? How'd you find out about this place? I know you didn't hear about this place in Philly!", He razzed us upon our entry.
The stuffed sopapillas came recommened from both this guy and Raven as well, so thats what we all got. Raven had launched into a tirade of exaggeration while he drew us the map, "You eat one of these stuffed sopapillas man, you'll be full til' Thursday night!"
"I'll be full until we're in Texas you think?", I asked him.
"At least man, at least.", and surprisingly the man was spot on. For under three dollars we were fed copious amounts of refried beans, cheese, lettuce, and a chorizo sauce encased in a dense and crispy bread shell. A "gut bomb" they called it.
I ate about half in the parking lot and was left not only full, but in a state of panic from some spicy chile's they snuck in there. On the drive I began to wonder if I was maybe allergic to the chile's or something, as it took a while for the panic feeling to wear off, at which point I was feeling able to eat again, so I started in on my remaining half, only getting halfway through that before I was again full, and right back in the panic state.
So wouldn't you know it was a good hour into Texas that I gained the capibilities to finish the remaining quarter of it, resuming satiation, this time without panic, possibly having conditioned myself to the spice, building up a nice tolerance.
If for $2.80 I can buy something that will keep the hunger away for a solid half a day, I feel like a little spice induced panic is nothing more than an additional tax they throw in. And I don't really have a problem with that, you've gotta work for your comfort.

Roadside Grill Session #3

2010-05-19T10:58:00.001-07:00

Sunday May 9th 2010
Roadside Grill Session #3, Safeway parking lot, Tempe, AZ

Grill session #2 took place at an I-90 rest area in central Washington during a wild wind storm, making the session rushed and unpleasant, resulting in lack of documentation. We made "Fish Philly's" again, and honed the criteria for the sandwich down to an exact science. To make one you will need to buy: the cheapest fish (preferably not frozen), the cheapest cheese (ordered from the deli counter, specifying the exact amount of slices you'd like), the cheapest bread (pre-sliced or not, doesn't matter), and then you just spend whatever they're asking on the avocado and you've got all you'll need.
So after waking up too late in Arizona to make it to the Grand Junction, CO show, we canceled the next two days of shows, miraculously booked new ones throughout the desert, and in realization of the financial bullet we had just dodged and the miraculous feat we just pulled off, decided to hit the grocery store and celebrate with a round of Fish Philly's.
These ones had tilapia, more pepper jack, obviously avocado, and everything bagels. For a moment we decided a Fish Philly on an everything bagel was a "Desert Style" Fish Philly, but after making them with some green chile's donated from Jeremy's ex-girlfiends dad in New Mexico (weird, i know), we decided that was desert style, and the everything bagel was "College Style".

La Playita

2010-05-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

Friday May 7th 2010
La Playita, 3306 Lincoln Blvd, Santa Monica, CA

Apprehensively acting on an impulse decision to leave Sacramento en route for LA at 2 AM, we shot down I-5 in the middle of the night with a 32 year old man who has never been in possession of a valid license as our driver, while the rest of us caught up on some sleep. Arriving at 9:30 AM, clueless as to how we would kill the next 12 hours in front of us, we found ourselves being pulled in the direction of the freak magnet that is Venice Beach.
Having Recently been in the area for a wedding, Rick recognized our surroundings as we drove down the Lincoln Blvd stretch of California route 1, and remembered seeing people enjoying some type of "bloody fish drink", which we decided to seek out and try. Luckily this sign sported an unmistakable illustration of said drink and we stopped to check it out.
Seeing everyone with their murky red cocktails, vegetables and chunks of fish swirling around inside, I began to wonder if this was the right choice for first meal of the day. It was only 10AM, I hadn't even had any coffee yet, but I was definitely going to. Would coffee be a good thing to throw into the mix right after a varietal seafood morning? It certainly didn't sound like it, and to tell the truth I was becoming quite skeptical about ordering one of these things. Several times I stood at the window, ready to place my order, I'd see the guy coming over with his paper and pen, and I'd chicken out, step out of line, and resume looking at the menu, waiting for something to tell me what to do. And then I remembered the blog. I had to do it, for you, the reader. I could have walked to the Whole Foods next door, grabbed a falafel sandwich, and been like, "Today I went to Whole Foods, I had a falafel sandwich. It was good. I enjoyed it.", but that would have been total bullshit, so I sucked it up, ordered a small fish cocktail, and stood there on the sidewalk, clutching it in my hand, stirring it with my spoon.
A tentacle would pop to the surface, a chunk of avocado, a whole shrimp, a piece of crab, a blob of salsa. I took a few sips of the liquid and it was pretty nice, actually not too bad for breakfast, a tomato and vegetable based juice with a light fish flavoring. I had some spoonfulls of avocado and vegetables first before I got into the real seafood territory which I naturally had mixed feelings about.
The sight of a tentacle chunk and the texture of squid, in a drink context, that early in the day, after an all night drive, was I think just a little bit more than I had hoped to get into. A lot of the fish wasn't recognizable to me. Some of it came in sugar cube sized squares, and they all varied in consistency, certain pieces being nice and soft, others tough and chewy. I drank most of the liquid, ate the vegetables, and what I could manage of the fish, passing the rest along to our surprisingly alert driver who sat and gazed confusedly into the cup.
Instead of a drink, I would call this a chilled soup, and I probably wouldn't recommend having it first thing in the morning. I drank my coffee after this without any negative side effects, and the day more or less went in an uphill direction from there.

In-N-Out Burger

2010-05-18T14:34:00.001-07:00

Wednesday May 5th 2010
In-N-Out Burger, 1275 Dana Dr, Redding, CA

Allow me to preface this entry with a few words about the culinary genre of Fast Food. For a long time I never really paid it too much thought. I would eat it when necessary or convenient without bias to certain restaurants and continue on with my day unaffected. It was around the time that the film "Super Size Me" came out, and after seeing it, when I briefly and for the first time really 'got in' to Fast Food.
While the movies publicity had McDonalds cowering in the corner creating salad dishes, getting rid of their jumbo sizes, and offering fruit, their competitors Burger King seized the moment and created two of their filthiest sandwiches to date, catering to what people who like Fast Food in the first place actually want. The King Kong burger, a three tier frizbee burger caked in a menagerie of dressings and sauces, and The Meatnormous, a two omelette, four bacon, three sausage, ham steak, and cheese, full day ruining breakfast meal. Both of which I tried and felt drugged, delirious, and frightened afterwards. It was the first time Fast Food has harmed me with what I now refer to as "Mental Food Poisioning", a common Fast Food side effect in which you experience unreasonable thoughts and an almost indescribable negative euphoria.
As time passed, the list of Fast Food restaurants I was ok with dining at began to dwindle considerably. I got the Popeyes paranoia in the Atlanta airport food court. A McDonalds breakfast sandwich started giving me sporadic hot flashes and had me considering checking into a hospital in Memphis. It took at least three ruthless gut grabs from Checkers's spicy chicken sandwich before I caught on. Taco Bell was one of the only ones not on my danger list, but then I overdid it with the cheesy gordita crunch "NBA Box" (seen here), and I had trouble making it back to the house, playing basketball just wouldn't have worked. It's come down to Wendy's (only in dire situations, and I'm sure they'll slip up soon enough), and the great, the grand, In-N-Out Burger.
Never before has a Fast Food chain acheived the same mythical lore that In-N-Out has. Slacking East Coasters who never make the trip out West can only dream as their enlightened friends embellish and blow out of proportion the secret menu, the animal style fries, furthuring it's kingly reputation across the land.

The uniformity among In-N-Out's, although gross and upsetting, is quite impressive. Each locations interior looks exactly the same, exactly. Even the employees look alike. I mean, yeah they're all forced into 50's style goofball diner cap's and tight red aprons, but physically, they look the same from town to town. Either theres some sort of California cross polination type thing going on or they're cloning these people. And they're happy! Actual happiness too, not a ploy, not some con. I watched a girl today struggling with an old man who wanted this on his burger, but he didn't want that, and he couldn't decide on fries or not, and where I would have been like, "Back of the line you senile old bastard, how'd you get out of the house?", she patiently assisted him with a genuine smile and look of true joy on her face. It actually made her happy to help this guy get the exact kind of burger he wanted. Astonishing!
The food itself at In-N-Out has never harmed me like those other places, but I have harmed myself with it. Sure, theres no freezer here, the beef is brought in fresh everyday, the potatoes are prepared to order, theres no preservatives in the bread, but it's still Fast Food. It just takes more of it to acheive the same effects you could easily get from one item off the dollar menu at Jack In The Box. Here is a before and after shot of me eating a 4X4 at this very same In-N-Out location back in the fall of 2007. In the before picture you can spot a sinful glimmer of excitement in my eye, in the after picture I have clearly been transported to the dark side and mentally conquered by the burger. 4X4 translates to four beef patties by four cheese slices, and any number you wish can be substituted in depending on how "wild" your trying to get. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though a sensible portion of food from In-N-Out won't make you feel like complete garbage, and actually could make you feel pretty amazing, if you keep going you'll get there. And that's what I did then, and also today.

I've learned my lesson with 4X4's, the joke just isn't that funny, especially for me. So I went with the Double Double, animal style, a double cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, sauteed onions, thousand island dressing, and pickles. It was incredible. It had been two years since I'd had In-N-Out and I missed it every single day, but I couldn't just leave it at that. Instead of being pleasantly satisfied by the burger alone, I managed to convince myself that some animal style fries would be a good idea. So post double cheeseburger I dipped into a basket of toxic waste topped french fries, acheiving the feeling of body and mind Fast Food contamination that some awful part of me apparently wanted. Ahh...but it had been two years and I was ready to indulge, I needed to go overboard and I did and I don't regret it for a second. In-N-Out; one of maybe three good things about the West Coast.

Roadside Grill Session #1

2010-05-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday May 2nd 2010
Roadside Grill Session #1, I-94 Rest Stop, Oriska, ND

Intrigued and I supposed inspired by the "Fish Philly" menu option we discovered at Minneapolis's Mediterranean Deli, we decided to make them for ourselves about three and a half hours into a 26 plus hour drive to Seattle.
Had the Fish Philly been ordered at the Mediterranean Deli, or were such a sandwich even offered in the city of Philadelphia it would likely be a deep fried, soggy, bottom feeding chunk of mutated aquatic life smothered in cheez whiz and onions in a stale roll.
Not interested in eating such a thing, or in possession of the correct tools to make it, we took some liberties and created a new, more personally appealing recipe with ingredients gathered from Fargo's poorly maintained Sun Mart, and grilled em up at the Oriska rest stop.
Grilled catfish, melted pepper jack cheese, and avocado, prepared and then lightly burned on the grill.

Mediterranean Deli

2010-05-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 1st 2010
Mediterranean Deli, Cedar and S 6th, Minneapolis, MN

There is something very appealing about the Gyro to me. It's an irresistible attraction, possibly caused by minor hypnotism due to the slow rotation of the meat log against the backdrop of hot red coils. Something about watching the Gyro vendor taking their blade to the log, shaving off long strips of meat, revealing an inner shade, and tossing it carelessly on a grill for a few minutes, theres a simple magic to it. Not to mention the feeling of complete satisfaction experienced after eating one.
Minneapolis's Cedar Towers are two gigantic high rise apartment buildings, more on the project side of things than the condo side. Actually way more towards the project side, and apparently used to house a predominant hippy population until the 90's when there was an influx of Somalians and Northern Africans to the area who claimed the towers for themselves. And thank goodness, because without them this neighborhood would likely be a trendy mess of bulk grain co-op's and dopey stoners playing hakky sack on the sidewalk. There is a little bit of that element here still, but the majority of businesses are African oriented. All kinds of interesting markets, hookah salesmen, bizarre looking "East African Style" coffee shops, and restaurants like the Mediterranean Deli.

Unfortunately for you this was by far not the most adventerous or exciting choice of restaurant we had at our disposal, but I was looking for a Gyro and I got one. This was sort of like a Gyro platter, the pita was laid flat and acted as a bed for the stack of meat, lettuce, tomato, and full hosing of cucumber Tzatziki sauce. I had to eat about a quarter of it with a fork before I could fit most of it in the pita and eat with my hands, which even with that quarter missing was a sloppy challenge, and the medium size nonetheless.
A Philadelphia section was included in their menu which was listed like this: "Philly Cheese Steak", "Gyros Philly" (yes, pluralized), "Chickens Philly", and "Fish Philly", all followed up by "Sambusa". We had a lot of questions we didn't know how to phrase and they went unanswered.
Minneapolis is the kind of place I'd like to come to for a full week with a thick wad of cash and just go walking around buying funny food. This is a regular fish sandwich.

Marko's Tacos

2010-05-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday April 29th 2010
Marko's Tacos, 3009 W Cermak, Chicago, IL

Being a couple hours early for the show in Chicago we wandered around the neighborhood in search of more dollar store sunglasses and tacos. We spotted quite a few Mexican restaurants, one Rick thought had come recommended to him by a friend. After closer examination he realized it wasn't the same place, but we decided to to pretend that it had in fact been recommended and go, because the difference between an actual recommendation and a fake one is pretty slim.
My plan was to be economical, keep it cheap, and not eat too much now in case there was going to be some food at the show. I ordered what I believed would be a pleasant and light hunger reliever, two tacos (chicken and chorizo), with sides of guacamole and sour cream. The sides being only 50 cents, it seemed like the right thing to do.
We sat down and were brought the common place and expected bowl of tortilla chips and salsa spread, but were then surprised by the delivery of three cups of lentil soup. Confused looks were shot around the table, but we were the only party of three, so it must have been for us. We accepted the offer.
Then came the tacos. As soon as they were put down in front of me, I realized just how bad the Mexican food situation in Philly really is. I mean I knew it was bad, but just seeing these masterfully crafted beauties and thinking back to Taco Loco, my 'favorite' Philly spot, it was just kind of sad.
The Taco Loco taco's are topped with onion and cilantro only, where as these had both of those plus lettuce, tomato, and queso fresco. Cheese god damn it! An essential ingredient, for which there is no sensible reason for exclusion. All these fine ingredients, tacos loaded with meat, for $1.80 a piece.
I was halfway through my chorizo taco when the sides came. I'd forgotten about them. Look at this "side" of guacamole. That's at least two avocado's in there, and this was 50 cents! One avocado costs at least a dollar in the grocery store, and thats on a good day! (confused baffled silence) At this point, one cup of lentil soup and half a taco down, eyeing the still plentiful spread before me, I realized I might have went a little overboard.
The tacos I put back without a problem, it was the guac and the sour cream that were giving me trouble. Guacamole is a precious and luxurious resource that in good conscience cannot be wasted. I offered some to my dining mates, both of whom had the foresight and common sense to get just a single taco, and yet were still full enough to not put a noticeable dent in the mountain of guac. And with the tortilla chip supply dwindling and no utencils in sight, it was becoming harder to eat. I used the last chip as a spoon, shovling left over taco scraps into my mouth, and sucking the sour cream and guac off of it, until the scraps were gone and i was eating just the sides. A nice taste, but an obnoxious wet and squishy texture that forced me to eat the chip spoon, so I could at least somewhat enjoy the things I had ordered. This experience, plus the amount I had already eaten, combined with the sensation of adjusting my eyes to the real world, after five hours of sunglasses vision, had me feeling pretty loopy when we left. But there was no food at the show, so I did the right thing, and all that only cost five bucks! This place gets an actual recommendation now.

Steve's Lunch

2010-05-18T12:16:00.001-07:00

Thursday April 29th 2010
Steve's Lunch, Lorain and W 50th, Cleveland, OH

A kin to my native Olneyville New York System, Steve's Lunch is Cleveland's version of the all night disaster dog diner. The kind of place where neither the owners, the employees, or the patrons, care at all. Going there it is well known that you will be eating disgusting, although somewhat pleasurable garbage food with the possibility of unknown long term health risks, which will be hesitantly and unhappily served to you without a trace of pride by the downtrodden staff.
The menu is an explosion of sharpie scrawled construction paper taped erratically across the walls, explaining specials, sides, prices, rules of the house.
One recurring name on the menu is "Dooley". There is the Dooley Sandwich, the Super Dooley, maybe even the Dooley Deluxe. Dooley is the name of a Cleveland police officer who with loyal patronage and true dedication to Steve's Lunch, earned his way into the menu. Last time I was here he stood behind the counter, manning the grill, in full law enforcement uniform, brandishing a tazer, simultaneously preventing a violent outbreak amongst the drunk and disorderly customers, while processing and serving the orders in an appropriate fashion.
I have a theory on how this came to be: Dooley, new to the force, is assigned to the West Lorain neighborhood 'beat', passing by Steve's on a daily basis. Being a big hungry guy, he stops in has a few dogs, a coffee, it starts becoming a regular thing. He gets to know the waitresses, the owner, and always secretly having a passion for cooking, jumps behind the counter, gets on the grill, and saves the day on a busy and understaffed Saturday night, forever earning the trust and love of Steve's Lunch and their people.
So while listening to the list of races he's unafraid to taze, "Chinese, Puerto Rican, Mexican, hell I'll taze anyone.", I can only assume in addition to his police salary, Steve's is probably kicking him a few bucks on the side as well. Which means that in at least one respect, Dooley is really cleaning up out there in Cleveland.

Seen here is the regular Dooley sandwich, an egg, three sausage, four bacon, and cheese. And here, my Slaw Dog, a tightly cased, ultra low quality dog pulled from a vat of discolored warm water, shoved into a bun and loaded up with cole slaw. Something that actually tastes amazing after a long night of moderate rock and VHS.
Time is much more of a commitment here than you'd expect. You'd think you could just walk in, yell out 'slaw dog' and before you knew it you'd be back at home with the vile lingering taste in your mouth as the only confirmation that you actually ate the thing. A whirlwind, the way you want it to be, the way it should be. Instead it takes easliy ten minutes to even place your order. "I got a lot of orders to take!", the woman behind the counter will yell out of frustration with the presence of customers and the annoyance of having to do work. When you do finally get to tell them what you want, your order is then very casually assembled taking another 10 to 15 minutes before you can actually eat.
Is it worth the wait? Absolutely not. Do I enjoy killing time for a half hour just to introduce a tube of poisionous reject meat into my body at the end? Well, yes, I sort of do.

Tony Luke's

2010-04-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Monday April 26th, 2010
Tony Lukes, Oregon at Front, Philadelphia, PA

It was the day after an insane late night party, after a slow worn out day of struggle, after a not so wild but still insane ‘dudes-in-hats’ style fake south lounge out. Come Monday, I couldn’t wrap my head around it either. Shockingly I showed up for work, went through all the regular motions, but only an hour in, I hit that wall. Usually it takes at least two hours, three on a good day, before I hit the wall and my progress meter swan dives to zero and sits idling. So I did what I felt was best for everyone, and left.
The previous night, Roast Pork Italians came up in conversation twice. A not so well known traditional Philadelphia sandwich sadly overshadowed by the Cheese Steak, which although I’ve wanted to try since finding out about it, have not. A place called Paisano’s on Girard came recommended in both conversations about the sandwich, but was closed, so we opted for the famous Tony Lukes. Located in deep south Philly, it was about halfway there, after already stopping at Paisano’s that I realized I wouldn’t be returning from this ‘break’ I was on at work.
Tony Luke, appearance wise, is the sort of typical South Philly goon I would expect to be fighting with the auto body shop guys on my street, or calling me a fag when I walk past his sports bar, but instead of going that route he followed his passion for the Cheese Steak and made it big. This guy’s all over TV, he’s opening a restaurant in Dubai, he’s got microwave-able Cheese Steaks for sale in the grocery store with a picture of one of the nasty things reflecting off his bald scalp. A regular entrepreneur this guy.

We considered these “Frank Fries”, but five out of six of us got the Roast Pork Italian, a blending of slow roasted Pork, Broccoli Rabe, and sharp Provolone cheese on a regular sandwich roll. This was my first time having it, but I think Tony put a fine recipe together and trained his people well. The bitterness of the Broccoli Rabe provides a pleasant backdrop and contrasting accompaniment to the star of the show, the soft slow roasted pork slices. The two of these being bridged together by the sharp provolone, both literally with its melted glue like qualities adhering the rabe to the roast, and flavor wise with the sharp provolone being relatable to the rabe in its sharp flavor and to the pork in its creamy and pleasant texture, it was the perfect segue between the two. A truly exciting three ingredient sandwich.
Quickly, we hurried the end of our meals, tossing the scraps aside in effort to escape photographic stares from the near by ‘cheese steak challenge’ board, full of post ‘victory’ images of the grease sweating ‘winners’ of the five pound cheese steak challenge, and the army of New Jersey cops who boldly parked in the middle of these South Philly streets (I’m sure there’s a secret favor explaining this somewhere), caravanning back to the homestead to bid our guests farewell and get started on some home-rejuvenation. Gladly sacrificing a full days work and a full days pay for the experience of the Roast Pork Italian.

Richmond Diner

2010-04-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday April 10th 2010
Richmond Diner, Richmond and Tioga, Philadelphia, PA

Consistent mediocrity is what separates diners from restaurants. When you say your meal at a diner was good, your saying that nothing was seriously wrong with it, there were no elements of danger involved. A place you’ve never been before, in a city you’ve never been to, can serve you the exact meal you were expecting to have, and we’re talking independently owned businesses. In that respect diners rarely dissatisfy, yet in the case of the Richmond Diner and my friend Kevin Esposito, every time he goes he, “Comes expecting nothing, and somehow leaves disappointed.”
Esposito had been on a personal mission to stay awake for 48 hours for no real reason other than just wanting to. About twenty hours in a group of us joined him on a trip to the Richmond Diner for an early breakfast and caffeine re-up. The informative marquee greeted us in the parking lot.

Orders varied across the table. I had a traditional two egg breakfast, scrambled with cheese, and as I expected they used the ‘waste no time’ style of cheesing eggs where two slices of processed American cheese product are laid out on top of the egg strip like a warm blanket. This came with wheat toast and home fries. Everything was exactly how I thought it would be, not that great, which is very reassuring.
The coffee’s, ordered black, were unashamedly spiked with pure hot water in plain sight of the recipient. The insides of the water glasses were coated with a thick film of bleach based cleaning product, able to be visibly scraped off with ones fingernail. Weaver’s cole slaw, after being dumped into his turkey sandwich, flowed out in one rush like a quick turn of the faucet, spawning tributaries of watery mayonnaise across the plate. Queasy on 7 hour energy drinks, Jonny couldn’t finish his side of home fries, the only food he felt safe ordering. We discovered Noah’s ‘Happy Waitress Special’ to be named so possibly because it was so easy to make; an open face grilled cheese sandwich.
We were offered desert, “We got some fresh pies over there. I wouldn’t offer them to you if they weren’t fresh.”, our waitress told us. Fresh meaning freshly purchased from the store. We politely declined, which for some reason gave her an excuse for her to start talking to us about her son. She was saving up to buy him a car so he can come down and visit more, being all the way up in the Lehigh Valley without a ride. There was nothing for him in Philly anymore and she didn’t want him down here anyways, falling back in with those “Corner Chubs, out on the corner all night, selling drugs and guns.”
Tipping was done so with wild abandon, silently having come to a mutual decision that if your going to spend any of your money at all on average borderline bad food, you might as well spend a lot of it. And that guy needs a car.

Taco Loco

2010-04-11T17:43:00.001-07:00

Friday April 9th 2010
Taco Loco, 4th and Washington, Philadelphia, PA

First of all, notice the abandoned baby stroller in front of the truck. I had nothing to do with that. Possible abductions aside, this place is good, I would say the best Mexican food I’ve had in Philadelphia. Slight east coast inflation, but better than average at $2 a taco.
Only you speak. The woman working, who was visibly bummed (and I mean, why not? Stuck in that trailer all day.), approached the window and gave me a stare. She was looking right at me, so I told her what I wanted, a pollo taco and a barbacoa taco. She scribbled it down and left the window, no repeating the order back to me to make sure she got it right, no ‘just a couple minutes’, no small talk, she gets the information and assembles the product. We wouldn’t have had much to talk about anyways.
If you can see here, the shelf above the sink is loaded with cartons of cigarettes. Classic Philly style, branching the business out in different directions. Not always the sign of a good place, but the sign of a real one.

The taco’s were done in about five minutes. The barbacoa, a slow cooked beef, was exceptional, very moist and flavorful, the meat flaked apart nicely. Large portions of meat too, topped with diced onions and cilantro with a lime wedge on the side, double layered corn tortilla.
The chicken was also quite nice. Shredded, cooked in hot Mexican spices, providing a good kick, but nothing too overwhelming.
I ate the barbacoa first. Enjoying it immensely, and also because I was sick of trying to hold it and drive at the same, I ate about the last third of it in one bite. This third contained an undetected fat globule which I was forced to swallow having already mashed it up in with the rest of the meat and tortilla, unpleasant, but what can you do. Then a similar thing happened with the chicken, I was really having a good time eating it, and then in one of the last bites there was a crunch, and then another one. Not like the crunch of an onion, and chicken has never crunched on me before. I don’t know what it was, possibly a strange piece of the animal, cartilage, bone perhaps.
Don’t let this deter you from Taco Loco. Everyone makes mistakes and that lady was fresh out of love to cook with. Much better than most of the other Mexican places I’ve tried in that neighborhood, and easy to park at.

Wazobia Restaurant

2010-04-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

Thursday April 8th 2010
Wazobia Restaurant, 11th and Mt Vernon, Philadelphia, PA

African food, I know not much of it. I’ve seen people eat an Ethiopian dish where there’s some sort of spongey looking bread, almost like a thick pancake which they use as an edible glove to mop up all the meat and sauce and slop on the plate, but I’m not even sure what that’s called. Despite my lack of knowledge, and the fact that every time you see a food related TV show where someones in Africa they always have to eat weird bugs and rotten meat cooked in hot dirt and spit, I was excited to eat at Wazobia after spotting it on my drive back to work. I had high hopes for some potentially delicious food I had never before discovered.

The interior was pleasant, lots of plants and natural light, nice tables, a poster showing skylines of African cities, a bar/counter area at the front of the store, which was not where you ordered food or drinks, but seemed to only be an off limits area where they kept supplies. The place where ordering is done is a small glass window that slides off to the side revealing the kitchen, employees, and a dozen steaming pots boiling on the stove.
No descriptions or even mild explanations are given on the menu, absolutely no hints. There were two sections, one which appeared to be for entrees, and another for smaller rice dishes. The entree section had about seven items to choose from, all completely foreign to me. At the top there was a caption saying ‘your choice of meat: beef, chicken, goat, etc...’ So I figured I’d just go with the first item, because in a blind situation like this what’s the difference? Culinary roulette.
“I’ll have the Amala with chicken.”, I told the woman behind the window. Although it says on the menu ‘your choice of meat’ and chicken is offered, this was apparently an incorrect combination.
“Amala with chicken?” she asked, tilting her head to the side as if she’d misheard me. “You’ve tried this before?”
I came clean, “No. I haven’t, but I’d like to.” She wasn’t convinced. There was a long pause in our verbal exchange as she ran it by the others in the kitchen in a different language.
“You try the Fufu.” she corrected me, apparently having come to a group decision about it. Another woman approached the window after this to confirm my order for Fufu, which I agreed to, because I’m sure they know best after all. After this I answered ‘yes’ to a lot of questions I couldn’t understand and waited while the food was prepared.
Be it Fufu, be it Amala, be it something else entirely, what I got was a styrofoam container with three pieces of fried chicken which had been coated in some sort of sauce which when fried produced sort of a web like texture on the top (and looked pretty cool), an extremely small portion of beans, more like a tasting of beans than a serving, and about six meals worth of seasoned rice.
So much rice. Which at first wasn’t bad, the seasoning was strong, spicy, but not hot. The chicken was extremely dry and no match for my plastic fork who’s talons would be deflected upon contact. The beans were actually the best part, too bad there was only three spoonfuls. I couldn’t finish it. To my disadvantage most of the chicken was consumed, and about half of the rice, which was just a silly amount of rice to eat, I laughed a little harder with each bite.
Having done some post meal research I’ve learned Amala to be yam processed into a doughy ball, and Fufu to be mashed yam and plantain. Two things that sound great to me, neither of which I had. Doughy yam balls and chicken! What on Earth could be wrong with that, it sounds amazing.
So instead of laying their best most authentic meal from the homeland on me, which it sounds like I would have enjoyed, they hit me with some bogus and boring "safe" meal. Why would I be in your restaurant, blinding ordering things off the menu if I didn’t want to try them? Why would you assume that I’d rather have a villages worth of rice and stale chicken? I was disappointed to say the least.

Memphis Taproom

2010-04-04T13:55:00.001-07:00

Sunday April 4th 2010
Memphis Taproom, Memphis and Cumberland, Philadelphia, PA

My neighborhood, being closed in by Frankford Avenue to the west, York St to the south, Lehigh Ave to the north, and Aramingo Ave to the east, is an unidentified conglomeration of three real bordering neighborhoods. Fishtown, the hip somewhat pleasant tree lined area full of cafe’s and trendy bars. Kensington, the more run down industrial zone. And Port Richmond, a calm working class area along side the Delaware river. The central overlap of these three areas is where I am. An area with a split population, half of which most likely hasn’t ventured past this four street boundary. A cast of degenerate mutants with sagging guts, oversized clothing, local sports pride, and an uncontrollable desire to be loud no matter what the cost. Ugly undesirables with a looping root somewhere in their malnourished family tree. The other half being the displaced runoff of youth thinking they were moving to Fishtown. Put me in the second category. Normally I would argue, say I wasn’t one of those people, that there was more to it, but lets face it, I’m 25, white, and here I am BLOGGING about the BRUNCH I ate...my god. And if you have to pick one of those to be in, the later is most definitely the better in this case.

The Memphis Taproom is, for the neighborhood, an upscale bar and restaurant, catering specifically to part two of the population. They stock specialty beers, local beers, Belgian beers, all ranging from $4 to $65 a glass. That’s right there’s $65 dollar beers here. Who? How? Why? I don’t know. They serve pretty standard fancy bar food. Seen here is about the simplest thing you can get, the breakfast special; potatoes, scrambled eggs with cheese, and wheat toast (note: I ate about half of this before I remembered to take a picture). Thick cut potatoes, and probably at least three eggs with a generous portion of cheddar tossed in there, not bad at all. Kept me full for several hours afterwards, and with the addition of the two pints of Fleur De Lehigh, feeling quite good as well.

Our waiter was our friend Michael Barker, except it wasn’t, it wasn’t him at all, it was his toned down dolled up PG-13 doppelganger. So that was kind of strange.
Part one of the neighborhoods population could almost come in here. It’s not like they all only eat Kraft products. Some of them might enjoy the ‘Memphis Brefis Sandwich’ and extensive beer selection, but some of the options are definitely leagues away from the world they live in. The vegan blood sausage being number one among them. A loose definition of the word vegan could be: a strict vegetarian who consumes no animal food or dairy products. Making the words ‘blood’ and ‘sausage’ following the word ‘vegan’, nothing more than plain wrong. It just can’t exist. They are attempting to serve imaginary food. The worst part of all this being that real actual tangible blood sausage was nowhere on the menu. While I looked for it I noticed scrapple and pork roll cutely thrown into certain dishes, and then when I heard Michael Barker go into his practiced spiel about ‘what is scrapple?’ to an inquiring table, I knew they weren’t serious about serving it and it was only a gimmick on their part. Treating scrapple, a proud Philadelphia tradition, as a novelty, although I don’t care for it, is a shameful act.
Closing up, this is a great place to walk to with your friends and spend some extra money on some good beers and decent food, blah, blah, blah. My only advice is to be aware of what side you’ve joined upon doing so.

Cafe Nhuy

2010-04-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

Friday April 2nd 2010
Café Nhuy, 8th and Christian, Philadelphia, PA

The best thing that I’ve ever bought in my whole life is my van. Old Vanny, a mobile green room who pampers all of her passengers with her luxurious transportation amenities. Aside from just loving that I own it, it’s great because people need it sometimes, like often happens at work. Another shipment of batik skirts and leather cross necklaces will be stuck in a cargo center somewhere and Old Vanny and I will be called upon to save it. These are my best days at work, because I completely ignore the presence of a major interstate system running through the city, and I take the old fashioned way, back roads. On my own time, this would infuriate me. Traffic lights, other people trying to drive near me, but when your on the clock and in your in your car, every day is like Sunday.
Not being in any particular rush to get the goods back to the man, I swung into Café Nhuy for a morning iced coffee and Vietnamese sandwich. Waiting rooms, walk in closets, handicapped bathroom stalls, maybe even cubicles for some of the more important employees are larger than this entire restaurant. As soon as your inside the door, your right up against the counter and whomever’s working is immediately asking you what you want. Mentioning cubicles, the place does sort of have an office decor. There’s a bunch of calendars around, and framed magazine-esque typically beautiful pictures of the Vietnam countryside. Seating isn’t necessarily offered, I suppose you could eat in there, but if anyone else at all came in, even if they were getting something to go, it would be incredibly cramped and uncomfortable the entire time.

To-the-point menu’s are something I’m a big fan of. I went to a place in Kansas City once and the entire menu consisted of two sandwiches. My mind was made up instantly, “I’ll have the chicken salad.” When a place has a several dozen item menu, specializing in about six different culinary fields at once, foods that shouldn’t mix accidentally do in your mind, and suddenly nothing on the entire gigantic menu seems even the slightest bit appetizing. Café Nhuy does not have this problem. Their menu lists six different sandwiches and then coffee at the bottom. It only took a moment to decide.
This was just after 10 AM, so I ordered an iced coffee first. Café Du Monde over ice blended with sweetened condensed milk, tasty, refreshing, invigorating. Being it so early, I wasn’t sure if a hearty meat were the right choice, meatball was definitely out, pork didn’t sound right, chicken either, so I went with the vegetarian. Thick strips of a marinated and seasoned tofu provided a pleasant squish and added a nice soft texture to the crunch of the carrots and radishes. Bringing me to the point where I mention I’m not really sure what all is in these things, aside from the obvious. Every time I eat one of these sandwiches, about halfway through I bite into something insanely spicy and my mouth is numb for the next twenty minutes. Quite the surprise being used to the sandwiches mild flavor and then getting whammed by a spice bomb someone hid in the center. I guess I like it enough though. And sometimes I detect the presence of a spread of sorts, perhaps a pate.
At an average price of $3.50, Vietnamese sandwiches are an affordable light meal, and a different mix of flavors than usually found in a loaf of French bread. I saved the last bite, keeping it wrapped up in the van while I worked and enjoyed it (briefly) on the ride home. A good choice.

The Smoothie Truck

2010-04-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday April 1st 2010
The Smoothie Truck, 4th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia, PA

Every day I’d been looking for it, waiting, hoping it would be there. The weather would be nice and I’d say, “Today. Today’s the day they’ll be back.” And today my friends, today was that day. This place is on some next level realm where names are meaningless, portions although taken into consideration are not abided by, and the threat of giving product away resulting in loss of profit is nonexistent. Simplicity reigns supreme.
Like I said, this place has no name. The closest it comes is where in the boldest of all the letters on the truck it clearly and simply states what they have; Fruit Salad and Smoothies. I have personally taken to referring to it as ‘The Smoothie Truck’. A truck who’s absence made this multiple blizzard Winter just that much worse to deal with.
Standing at the front of the truck you can see through a glass window their freshly cut selection of fruits to which you can point and add to your salad. Mango, pineapple, strawberries, coconut, melons, it’s a pretty decent selection. Two women run the whole operation. One cuts up and prepares the fruit while the other does all the blending and assembly.
Lets tackle each specialty separately. The fruit salads come in large and small sizes in circular plastic ‘to go’ containers with lids that snap in place. Only they don’t snap them shut. So much fruit is placed in the bed of the container that the lid is unable to close and is rubber banded on leaving an exposed gap of fruit all the way around. As if that already isn’t going the extra mile, once the rubber bands are in place, she then stuffs more fruit into the open crevasses left in the exposed gap, handing you a fruit salad that is literally exploding out the sides.

Smoothies are offered mostly in colada form (pina colada, strawberry colada) except the number five ‘special mixed fruit shake’, which is what you see here. This special mixed fruit shake, having watched the creation process, is just a few pieces of every kind of fruit they have ready to go tossed into a blender with some ice and pulverized into a delicious slurry. You figure if you order the medium size they’d grab the appropriate cup, fill it up to the top and give it over. It would even be possible that they would know what point to fill the blender to equal a medium or large size. Not the case. They seem to always be over guessing the amount to blend, leaving them with extra smoothie at the end. Is it stored in the fridge until the next person orders a number five? No! It is given to you in an additional cup at no extra charge. In the dead of the summer I’ve seen this lady point to people on the street who are waiting in line for the truck and hand them complimentary smoothie samples to make the wait, which can be quite long, more enjoyable.
One time, taking it back a few years, I worked at Subway (the miracle weight loss sandwich chain) for one full day. During my time there an employee explained to me that were a cookie to break, either by it falling on the floor or simply being handled too roughly, it was not under any circumstances to be consumed. A note explaining its loss was to be left in a log book and approved by the manager on duty. The same went for leftover bread. Obviously this was on my mind on the walk back to work the next day, a walk which was never completed.
Clearly, The Smoothie Truck is not a chain, exact amounts are not measured and calculated, there is no log book. And although it didn’t change the way I was feeling after a random walk around North Philly until 4:30 AM with Matt “The Priv Dog” Sullivan, pockets lined with National Bohemian, it was comforting.

Syrenka Restaurant

2010-04-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

Monday March 29th 2010
Syrenka Restaurant, Richmond and Allegheny, Philadelphia, PA

Monday, work had me taking a Budget moving truck up to what is an incredibly inappropriate area of the so called Garden State, to pick up 88 boxes of “Leaf” and “Chakiwara” tapestries which had been shipped over from Mumbai and were being held in a U.S. customs cargo center. Summing it up, I went to the wrong place in Elizabeth, and then eventually found the right place in Carteret, and barely fit all the boxes in the truck even with the help of the muscle bound warehouse goons all wearing “I Love Puerto Rico” shirts.
Skipping breakfast as always, I had worked up quite the void in my stomach by the time 3:30 rolled around and I was getting back into Philly. Having spotted Syrenka a while ago, but never visiting, I was reminded of it as I drove down Richmond St, having gotten off at an early exit to avoid possible downtown traffic, so I stopped.

It’s a cool area up by Allegheny and Richmond, they’ve got a lot of houses with storefronts showcasing old flowers and antique trash, vintage store front signs, and tons of Polish bars and markets. The inside of Syrenka, much like a lot of places in the neighborhood looks like it might have been exactly the same in 1975. Dated minimal menus, classic cafeteria style counter, wilting newspaper articles hung on the wall without frames. It’s definitely not a place trying to keep up with the times.
No one was in there. For the first minute at least, I was completely alone, no one. For a second I thought it might be like one of those businesses that’s not actually what it says it is, and that maybe I shouldn’t be there, but a nice young woman with a heavy Polish accent came out from the back room and took my order. Figuring I’d keep it simple I ordered an order of potato and cheese pierogies. I washed some of the cargo warehouse grime off my hands in their closet of a bathroom, sipped my ginger ale and waited while she prepared them.
When you walk into a restaurant and not a single other person is eating there it can maybe feel like a bad sign, but that is not the case here. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever had freshly prepared homemade pierogies before, and after eating them I was sure I never had, I would remember something that good.

A heavy aroma of warm dough, just like fresh baked bread, hit me in the face when I opened the container they were in. These were thick doughed, fully packed, plump and squishy, durable pierogies, built to last. In my experience with store bought frozen pierogies, courtesy of Mrs. T or whatever her name is, once bitten, the pierogie has a tendency to become hard to manage. Potato spills out the side, the whole thing is kind of flimsy so its flopping all around on the end of the fork. Not these. With each bite the pierogies stayed firm and in tact, which helped me a lot, as I ate them while driving a moving truck down a narrow street back to work. And they were served with a side of sour cream, something that I didn’t know I liked so much until this year. Great stuff! I used all of it, don’t think I could eat pierogies without it again.
Driving by Syrenka again yesterday, I peeked in to see if I had been there at an off hours time, which I apparently had, because I noticed at least two occupied tables. I plan on going back soon.

Smoke'n Dudes

2010-04-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday March 28th 2010
Smoke’n Dudes, Neshaminy Blvd, Bensalem, PA

At least out of people I know, I would consider myself to be in the top ten percent of those skilled in navigation and dealing with directions. Except when you get me out in the suburbs and we’re making random turns with no identifiable markers passing by identically designed houses with identical lawn ornaments, then I get confused. So, although I’ve been to Smoke’n Dudes twice, I’m not confident in my ability to find it again.
Smoke’n dudes is the humorous on many levels name of a delightful meat oasis located deep in an otherwise sterile suburban labyrinth to the north of Philadelphia, in the town when Ben Franklin first flew his kite; Bensalem. All of a sudden there you are face to face with a faux log cabin brandishing a sign with a cute cartoon version of the animal you are about to eat. A pig in a chef’s hat, adorable. If only they put those on em at the slaughterhouse. A small dining area, a less than confident wait staff, terrible pictures of kids eating barbecue and ceramic pigs in bibs greet you upon entry.

My dining partners included Ohioans Mark Van Fleet (editor and distributor of Married Life Quarterly), Aaron Hibbs (Guinness Book hula hoop champion), Aaron Klamut (Sword Heaven’s half roadie), local Bensalem personality Mat “Bud Newton” Rademon and his lady friend Jackie from down in the city.

The most popular food item among our table was the BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich. A sandwich done well, served on a quality roll with a good portion of juicy pork and a few different sauces on the table to add to it. Sides of hush puppies, cole slaw, cheese fries, scattered across the table.
The problem being that although everyone’s food was pretty good, no ones food was very exciting. Instead of discussing how amazing it was, which I don’t believe anyone even commented on, we talked about other foods. Hibbs mentioned how the hot dog place he works at as janitor in Columbus just got a new bacon wrapped dog topped with onion rings. I suggested they actually slide the dog through the onion rings, making it neater and more visually appealing. He’s going to mention it to his boss. Some reminiscing was done about the time we ordered a whole roasted pig from Smoke’n Dudes for an all day improvised music festival held at my house, and how most of the pigs exterior became integrated into Rick Weavers wardrobe by the end of the night.
Unfortunately the food ended up being a lot like the neighborhood it was in; uniform, safe, and similar to a lot of other places. It’s barbecue, and people tend to like that done a certain way, which made me all the more distraught about their garden burger option on the menu. A true life or death barbecue joint would never cater to the enemy. Imagine that at some smokehouse in rural Alabama! No, don’t actually, it’s too ugly.
The suburbs, (long drawn out sigh) what can you do?

Plaza Pizza

2010-03-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

Wednesday March 24th and Friday March 26th 2010
Plaza Pizza, 4th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia, PA

You might recall in my first entry I used Plaza Pizza as a point of reference for a compare and contrast evaluation of the near by Liberty Pizza. I said that a Liberty slice is far superior to a Plaza slice, a belief in which I stand firm. Plaza slices are inconsistent, varying day to day without ever achieving true success.
My Wednesday slices (seen below) were the most typical of an average Plaza slice. Crust like a spongy cracker, leaving behind a distinct trail of crumbs on your plate and shirt, a skimpy portion of sauce which there is too little of to get enough of a taste to make a comment on, and a choking hazards worth of discount mozzarella. The grease tasting very buttery, almost as if the dough were buttered prior to cooking. When its like this, immediately after finishing, my saliva glands go into hyper mode and I’m left with the overwhelming desire to drool and spit all over the place as I rush back to work to chug several cups of water and get the butter coating out of my mouth.
Friday was a better day for Plaza. As you can see, my slices were a little more well done, which maybe cooked some of the butter off and crisped the cheese up a bit, but of course there’s no happy medium, so the crust was even more brittle and crumbly than usual.
You ask me, “Why? Why would you go there twice in one week? Why is it you frequent an establishment who’s product you clearly hate?”
Well, when I first started working for Adi and the boys I tried out Plaza and was disappointed. Due to convenience of its location I returned several times, never leaving satisfied. My at the time co-worker Davey put it into perspective for me when I asked him about it, “Yeah, it’s pretty bad, but the ladies who work there keep calling me honey, so I mean, I guess I’ll keep going there.”
And that’s how it is. I walk into Plaza and its all, “Hey Ren.” and “Hey Babe.”, “How’s it going?”, “How’s work?”. You feel guilty if you don’t go in there, they ask you about it, “Where have you been? Your not working?” I’ve pretty much committed at this point.
Not to mention, it’s quite the scene in there. The owner stands off in an aisle to the left of the counter staring blankly into the kitchen occasionally screaming things in Greek to the rest of the staff. Sometimes he’ll pick up the phone, “I need your credit card number! I need the number! Hello? He hang up on me!” The all female counter staff constantly in mid discussion about family drama or debating the merits of the new Beyonce versus the old Beyonce.
They operate on a different level. On Friday, there was a guy in a wheelchair out front trying to bum change from people, not too uncommon, but when he came in the store and paid for his already eaten meal with the change he just bummed, I was surprised. “Oh, no, it’s only $2.50 honey, you got some change.” the waitress told him, handing back some coins. They know customers by name, they sit down and talk with them while they eat, they help the elderly cross the street!
Their client base is quite diverse. My regular visiting hours being Monday through Friday between 1 and 3 PM, I see a real blend of humanity. They get the office lunch break suit and tie crowd, the assisted living crowd, the living on the street off their meds crowd, all sitting in a room together eating awful pizza. The beer cooler brings in a different element, a lot of people just passing through to pick up a 6 pack, or a lot of people sticking around for a while because it’s not like a bar so you don’t have to tip.
Wednesday there was an older hunchbacked man at the counter talking to the Greek boss, “Tell Jimmy you saw me.”, he told him.
“Yeah, I’ll tell him.”
“Tell him I lost weight. I lost almost sixty pounds. I got the turkey neck now.”, he said, securing his loose neck skin between his pointer and index fingers and giving it a good throttle. To me there’s nothing like seeing something like that and then eating two slices of overly cheesed saliva producing slices of pizza and going straight back to work.

Panaderia La Espiga

2010-03-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Monday March 22nd 2010
Panaderia La Espiga, 10th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia, PA

Friday I got the idea in my head that I’d walk the opposite direction down Spring Garden than I usually do on my break. It was Friday after all, and I felt deserving of a particularly long lunch. After passing 10th st, the word “Tacos” caught my eye on a near by awning and I knew right then and there, that’s what I needed to eat.
Knowing absolutely nothing about this place, it caught me off guard to be in a market upon entering. Goya products as far as I could see. Mexican calling cards. A display case of Spanish cakes and pastries. I wandered towards the back of the store, but dead ended at the meat cooler. Going towards the right I ended up in the adjoining latin music store, half of which was empty and appeared to be used as storage for cleaning products, the other half a mix between center floor displays of toilet paper and walls lined with salsa and reggaeton CD’s. Perusing the CD’s for a bit, I say damn near everyone of them had a beach scene cover with a spread of scantily clad Latin women, “Reggaeton” in bold block lettering at the bottom (let me just say I think it’s great when an album cover states what type of music the album is).

Still looking for tacos, I went in another adjoining room to the left and found about four empty tables that looked ideal for eating tacos at, but no sign of a place to order them, a kitchen to make them in, or a list of what they had. I double checked at the front counter to make sure I hadn’t missed something. No mention of freshly prepared food. I looked back around the store. They had a great selection of tortillas, cheeses, meats, vegetables, I could if I planned on going home, buy everything I needed to make my own tacos. Is that what they were talking about? Deep confusion set in. I was lost, out of place, and began to get anxious, so I blasted out the front door and ended up eating two giant and bland slices of pizza for lunch. It was a defeat.
Back at work I sought information from James, the Spring Garden Confucius, about this establishment and their immense lack of clarity in food service. He told me he thought they did sell tacos, but you had to order them at the check out counter where you’d normally pay for your Salsa album, Chorizo, and Jumex, but he only went in there to get sodas once in a while. So today, despite the rain, I went back, and asked the man at the counter bluntly,
“Do you sell tacos?”
“Yes we do.”, he replied.
“Where do I order them?”
“Right here.” Well how about that. I asked him what kind they had, how much they were, and placed my order. “Ok.”, he responded, leaving the counter unattended while he dashed away to wherever it was they were hiding the kitchen. Now, this is weird right? Its not just me I hope.
I walked out with a bag of three pork tacos. Double layered corn tortillas with huge chunks of pork in them. Look at that! This cost $7.50, which having briefly lived in California seems utterly ridiculous to me. One taco is maybe one dollar, a dollar in change. $7.50 for three is rough. But this is nowhere near Mexico, and there was a whole lot of meat in those tacos, so I guess its ok. They did taste pretty good, and I was able to adequately fill up on two and eat one later on. The only real bummer was that there was a real fatty chunk of pork in one of them, and I know some people are way into pork fat, but I’m not really one of those guys yet and even if I was I’m not sure pork fat paired with corn tortillas is the best taste or texture combination.

The more I think about it, Philadelphia isn’t really known for having very many good things at all, in general even. Mexican food being another one you can throw right up on that lengthy list of failures. I’ve only tried a few places, but I kept finding white people eating burritos with peas in them. The quality of all Mexican food around here is obviously below the standards for Southern California, or say Mexico, so shouldn’t it be priced accordingly?

Pho Ha

2010-03-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday March 20th 2010
Pho Ha, 6th and Washington, Philadelphia, PA

I almost can’t think of anything to write about this place, because there’s nothing really that funny about it. It’s an amazing restaurant run by true professionals. This whole strip of Washington Ave, starting at 6th St and continuing until about 12th or 13th, is littered with Pho restaurants, almost all of which look like they’d be good, yet every time I come down this way, it’s straight to Pho Ha.
The moment you enter someone shouts from the opposite side of the room and flashes you a hand signal indicating how many people they assume to be in your party. Like, two people walk in, he throws up two fingers and then points at which table we sit at. Or, we’ve got three more people meeting us, he throws up two fingers, but I flash him the whole palm so he directs us to a larger table. It’s startlingly efficient, you don’t even have to pause your stride, the whole thing takes place in less than two seconds.
Usually the waiter/host meets you at the table they just pointed you towards bearing menus and a pot of green tea. Time to make your selection is limited, a couple minutes max. This isn’t the type of place you order drinks and then food. It’s all at once. And it comes quick. Sometimes you even get your food before your drinks.
Generally I get the same thing every time I come here: a small white meat chicken pho and a Vietnamese iced coffee. Val and I’s first time here we ordered large pho’s, a wasteful mistake. Scott Reber, master of consumption, is the only person I’ve seen take one of those cauldrons down. For a while I was simply ordering chicken pho, and sometimes it would come with a lot of thin white meat chicken strips and sometimes it would come with mostly chicken skin and strange tissue pieces, until it started always coming with mostly skin. I gave it a shot, eating a few bowls prepared that way, but in the end decided I, for whatever reason, prefer the white meat slices, and began requesting them.

The iced coffee’s are served in a small glass with about a half inch of sweetened condensed milk at the bottom. The coffee slowly trickles onto the milk from a metal filter on top of the glass, forming two precise layers which are mixed with a spoon and poured over ice. This might be the only way I drink sweetened or creamed coffee, which normally I would consider contaminated.
On this particular day our pho bowls were as perfect as they’ve ever been. The broth’s steam and layer of floating onions hid the tangled treasure of firm noodles which I promptly surfaced from the bottom of the bowl. A bottle of Sriracha chili sauce is at every table and I like to squirt a little bit of that at each end of the bowl and mix it all up with the noodles. I think I went a little too heavy on it today, but it makes it feel so much more rewarding when you finish it that way, like you broke a sweat working too hard or something. It’s a feeling of accomplishment.
This combination of the coffee and the pho is unstoppable. It can be eaten for any meal at any time of the day and can cure almost any ailment. Last time I was here I laid across two chairs, wearing crooked sunglasses, sluggishly stirring my coffee and milk together, slurping one noodle at a time, trying not to cause any inner conflict. I thought I might have been a little overconfident in leaving the house and ordering food. With time my slurping pace increased, my drink was successfully stirred and sipped, and before I knew it, I was back in the game! A miracle meal.
Pictured below is my bowl of chicken pho and Val’s bowl of chicken and tripe pho.

Rosa City Diner

2010-03-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

Thursday March 18th 2010
Rosa City Diner, 4th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia, PA

The Rosa City Diner is a small food truck located in close proximity to my workplace, at 4th and Spring Garden. They serve pretty standard on the go style food truck fare; hot dogs, egg sandwiches, cheesesteaks, etc... I read over the menu a few times before approaching the window and ordering the chicken cheesesteak. A different take on the Philly tradition, and possibly completely undeserving of the steak title in the name.
The one woman working the truck, taking orders, cooking food, maintaining everything, spoke a foreign word at me in an inquisitory tone immediately following my request. I did not understand, but I agreed. “Yes.”, I answered. It took me a few moments to process the sound she emitted and relate it to my native “onions”. I was to be having onions on this sandwich.
Now I am in no way mocking foreign accents, but post onion agreement, she launched into a series of questions about what I would like included on my sandwich, none of which I understood. I simply nodded my head. She would glance back at the grill, think of something else that could be added, turn back towards me, make a suggestion, and I would blindly agree. “Everything.”, I finally told her.

Once the cooking and assembly process had begun, I noticed this sign on the side of the truck. “Bottle it’s better.”, was the caption, with a royal display of sodas standing tall before their sergeant. Now, weird grammar, possible lack of punctuation aside, does this mean anything? I mean, if you look closely theres cans in that picture!
All this nodding and yessing got me a sandwich full of minced chicken smothered in American cheese, some caramelized onions, and despite how many ingredients it seemed like I agreed to the only others I could pin point were ketchup and mayonnaise.
An occasionally wise man by the last name of Otis, over a meal of mayonnaised cheesesteaks, once told me amidst my complaints and confusion, that if you didn’t have mayonnaise on the cheesesteak that you would simply be “choking on dry steak and cheese with nothing to help it go down.” This could be debated, but in the case of the chicken cheesesteak the portions and tastes of both the tourist condiments were complimentary, and not offensive in any way like you might have expected them to be.
At $4.50 the chicken cheesesteak provided ample sustenance and a taste I’ll settle for at a pretty reasonable price. I believe this truck gets there pretty early in the morning, but is usually gone by 5 pm.

Sketch Burger

2010-03-14T17:14:00.001-07:00

Sunday March 14th 2010
Sketch Burger, E Girard at Columbia, Philadelphia, PA.

There’s a funny story about Sketch Burger, which involves a guy named Alex Hampshire, who’s a little bit of a funny story himself. Alex committed himself to the inexplicable torture of vegetarianism for nine years of his life, a diet that consists mostly of chick peas and spaghetti, until one day he stopped into Sketch Burger.
“A Vegan Friendly Burger Shack.”, reads the decal on the window at Sketch. And indeed it is, vegan options are offered, vegan baked goods, sauces, the whole deal. They also serve lamb, beef, bison, chicken, and the real stuff, not soy imitations. Alex didn’t realize this.
“I’ll have the burger!”, He proudly declared to the woman at the register.
“Well how would you like it done?”, She responded.
“Really?” He asked, “How would I like it done?”
“Yes, we take our burgers very seriously.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have it rare.”, He instructed her.
And rare he had it, scarfing down near raw beef for the first time in nine years, apparently exclaiming out loud how much he was enjoying his burger the entire time. He left energized and excited, parading about town to spread the word about the Sketch. His friends informed him in no time that Sketch wasn’t solely a vegan place, and that he did indeed eat a burger comprised of rare beef, but instead of throwing a hippy tantrum Alex embraced his love for the Burger and changed his ways after nine years of youthful confusion.
Today I went to Sketch to see what all the fuss was about. Up to this point I thought it was called Sketch Burger because they secretly served vegans raw meat, but they actually give people free burgers every week for doing funny drawings which are displayed on the walls, much like the one seen below of Gordon Ramsey, who the waitress informed me thoroughly enjoyed his burger when he was in town.

Fancy things like Kobe Beef and Bison are offered, but again, the wallet, so I went with the regular burger, which I had with horseradish cheddar, and a tahini sauce. Now I didn’t grow up eating burgers because my mom boycotted fast food restaurants for allegedly tearing down the rainforest to raise cattle, and I don’t even eat them on much of a regular basis these days, so when I do I almost never get through the whole thing, especially from a place like this that serves them real big and all. I was left with a sauce laden half inch by half inch chunk which I certainly didn’t want to waste, but I had such an intense burger high going on that I couldn’t put my will power into finishing it and with my judgement impaired, I allowed the waitress to take it away.
We sat in our booth, my brain reeling out of control in a protein haze, admiring ridiculous crayon drawings of people with burger heads, burger adorned Christmas trees, and stick figure cops chowing down on a Sketch meal. Names of meats and animals written all over place, I couldn’t get my mind off of Alex, possibly sitting in the exact spot I was, having his mind blown to bits by the rush of the burger.
All said, I think Sketch Burger would be a fine place to take someone to break their meat edge.

Jamaican D's

2010-03-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

Thursday March 11th 2010
Jamaican D’s, 8th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia, PA.

I work in a warehouse that’s completely overrun with a clutter of precariously stacked boxes placed in inconvenient spots all over the building. So cluttered, that at times I’ve stood at the center of four box towers and remained undetected by the other staff. Going back a few weeks, I showed up for work, walked through the warehouse to my work station, and stumbled upon a person I’d never seen before in my life, tucked into an alcove of boxes, working. Weird, I thought.
Halfway through the day this mystery man disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a styrofoam trough full of chicken, vegetables, and unidentifiable slop on which he gorged himself for the next twenty minutes.
“Where did you get that?”, I asked.
“At that Jamaican truck down the street.”, He replied.
Theres a Jamaican truck down the street? I was baffled. I’d seen the hot dog cart, the smoothie truck, the other truck that simply serves ‘food’, but never the Jamaican truck. Who is this guy?
I don’t really know, and I haven’t seen him since, but I have located and dined at the aforementioned truck which is located at the corner of 8th and Spring Garden, right across from the Philadelphia Traffic Court. Small and large portions of a couple varieties of chicken, goat, oxtail, and beef are served along with your choice of two sides. The list of sides being quite long and containing collard greens, plantains, potato salad, rice and beans, etc... My choice: jerk chicken with sweet potatoes and mac n cheese. The small size runs you $7.

Now at this warehouse I make $8 an hour, wait no, I just got a raise, I make $8.50 an hour. So not being a thick walletted man, I generally try and keep my lunch budget to the $5 and under range. I mean one $7 meal is almost a full hour of my working life, throw in a drink and we’re there. Paying this price made me wince a little at first, but once you dig in you realize you definitely made the right choice. Basically your getting a meal that’s size, if consumed in one sitting, will fully incapacitate you for the next hour. Not ideal for the boss back at the warehouse, but fine by me. So a $7 meal at Jamaican D’s is sort of like one big meal and a snack. Eat 2/3rds on break, show up back at work feeling great, sloppily polish the rest off on the drive back home.
The sweet potatoes are astounding, truly sweet, almost like a dessert in comparison to the rest of the food. Heavily seasoned with cinnamon, which not only tastes good but masks the otherwise unpleasant stale odors lurking in my van. The mac n cheese is no old box on the bottom of a save a lot shelf powered cheese nonsense. A thick layer of coagulated cheese keeps the macaroni below moist and warm. And the chicken, the succulent wonderful chicken comes in four decently sized chunks, which you have the option of smothering in a delicious jerk sauce, which you obviously should do. It is very tender and peels right off leaving a clean bone at the center.
Aside from those beef patties you see around sometimes, I think this might be my only other experience with Jamaican food. I’m not sure how authentically Jamaican mac n cheese is, but it was good, and now knowing that they serve a quality product at this truck I might dip in for some more traditional fare next time.

Liberty Pizza

2010-03-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

Wednesday March 10th 2009
Liberty Pizza, 7th and Fairmount, Philadelphia, PA

I’ve heard in the past that Philadelphia has the most pizza places per capita of any other U.S. city. Wether this is fact or fiction I’m not entirely sure, but whereas Philly might be known for having a lot of pizza places, it’s not known for having very many good ones, and quantity over quality is never the way to go. A slice from any random pizza place you happen to pass by in Philly is more likely than not to thoroughly disappoint you. Overly crispy, almost pastry like dough, and small slices loaded with bland low grade mozzarella are the common product.
This being said, I’m hesitant to try new pizza in this town out of fear for possibly getting a slice thats sub par even for Philly standards. I generally keep my distance from nondescript bullet proof glass style pizzerias, at least when I’m looking for food, but my co-worker James, a connoisseur of the eastern Spring Garden area highly recommended Liberty Pizza.
“It’s better than Plaza Pizza.”, He told me.
Which isn’t really saying much, Plaza Pizza being a Greek pizza joint down the road, great for a funny atmosphere and exceptionally friendly daytime staff, but fitting itself right into the mediocre category of Philadelphia pizza quality.
Liberty Pizza might not have the beer selection that Plaza does, their cashiers might not call me “Babe”, and maybe I can’t sit down and watch crazy people play with their soup, but I CAN eat a decent slice of pizza. Slices at Liberty run you $1.50 for cheese, and I think $1.75 for a topping (this is a halal place, so I’m not sure how they feel about pepperoni), and they come in a cone which is made by stapling the edges of a paper plate together, convenient for transport.

Taste wise, a Liberty slice is sort of like the best New York style pizza you could find in a cafeteria. And I mean nothing bad by that, it’s literally as if you ordered the “New York Style Pizza” in the hospital, and then you were like, “Wow! This is actually really good!”. The dough has a nice chew to it, there isn’t too much or too little cheese, and the sauce is spiced in a pleasantly subtle way. When held by the crust, the rest of the slice might sag a little bit, but generally holds its form, and without spillage of sauce or cheese. Napkins unnecessary.
It’s interior is typical for a lot of these unintentional variety stores you’ll find in Philly. There’s a snack cake section to the left of the door, a lightly stocked deli that might not get as much use as they’d like, several drink coolers, and they may or may not sell cigarettes, phone cards, and headache medication, it looks like they would.
I like Liberty Pizza, but at best it’s only decent, and its sad that in a city full of pizzerias something merely decent should be rare. But, hey, that’s the way it is, so congratulations to Liberty Pizza for not making whatever mistake it is that so many others have made.