Gripefoot

Grapefruit:

Really healthy for you... But impossible to eat at work with a plastic spoon.

xkcd has a funny look on grapefruits (though with a little sugar, they are quite tasty).

-e

Spike's Junkyard Dogs -- Original Thayer St. Location to Close

September 28th is going to be a sad, sad day in Providence, RI... It is the day that the original Thayer St. Providence, RI location of Spike's Junkyard Dogs is closing its doors.

No longer will local college students be able to stumble along its chain-link fence partitions after a long night of beruit and flip cup, barely glancing at the menu (because they already know what they want... oh yes, they know...) before ordering a Big Dave's Deluxe, Texas Ranger, and/or a Chilli and Cheddar, then jockying for a space at one of the few booths or stools.

Spike's hot dogs are no ordinary hot dogs... The franks are big, fat, and 100% beef. Now, granted, hot dog franks are generally not terribly healthy for you. But as far as hot dogs go, Spike's is top notch. Their buns weren't your run-of-the-mill, thin, wimpy, buy-em-at-the-supermarket hot dog buns either. They were big, fresh-baked, and delicious.

If you've never had a Spike's dog before, allow me to assist you in comprehending the scope and majesty of the greatness that is Spike's. Imagine the best hot dog you've ever had. Except make it delicious. Then a little more delicious. At that point, your imaginary hot dog is about as tasty as a Spike's dog that's been dropped on the ground and pooped on. That's right. Your hot dog sucks compared to Spike's.

And don't give me this Crif Dog shit either... Eating a Crif Dog is like taking your pet pig (or pitbull) to the prom. You can dress it up any way you'd like, but when it comes down to it, you're still slow dancing with a pig. Eating a Spike's Junkyard Dog is like taking five supermodels to the prom who also happen to be Rhodes Scholars, have worked three years with Peace Corps, Americorps, AND the Marine Corps, and are totally freaky in the bedroom.

The one silver lining in all this is that the other 9 locations are going to remain open... For now. But they can't survive without your support! Go find your nearest Spike's and start eating hot dogs today!! (They even have vegetarian dogs for you non-meat-eaters!)

Worse Korean Restaurant Name Ever

Now, I'm all for the spread of Korean culture into mainstream American society. Especially when it comes to Korean food. I love Korean food like a fat kid loves, well, Korean food. And I love it that K-town in New York is slowly expanding outward past the boundaries of West 32nd between 5th and Broadway.

HOWever... I'm just dumbfounded as to how this particular restaurant actually came into being. That is, the new Korean-themed Chop Suey that has just opened up in Times Square on the second floor of the Renaissance Hotel by Mr. Zak Pelaccio. CHOP SUEY?! You've got to be fucking kidding me. These retards couldn't think of a better name than that?? What the fuck does chop suey have to do with Korean food? That shit is CHINESE, dumbasses. But, then again, I suppose if we all look the same, our foods and cultures are probably the same too, huh? Assholes.

And just for reference, Wikipedia descibes the actual meaning of chop suey as such:

Generally, however, the name "chop suey" or "za sui", when used in Chinese, has the entirely different meaning of cooked animal offal or entrails.

I wish I could've been present at the meetings where the name was decided. I imagine their short list of potential names looked something like this:

- All Taste Same
- The Gourmet Gook
- Me So Solly's Sizzling BBQ
- The Chink House
- Puppy Chow
- Yellowman Meat Emporium
- Chinkity Chong-Chong Ching Chong Food

Hm. Come to think of it, perhaps Chop Suey wasn't the worst choice.

What a crock. I hope that restaurant fucking crashes and burns.

-e

UPDATE: I took a glance at the latest online Zagat user reviews. Most of them are negative or mediocre. Ha!

New Business: DessertTruck!

A friend of mine who goes to business school at Columbia forwarded me some info on a new business that's opening up tonight. It's called DessertTruck... Sounds like a great concept to me. It's pretty self-explanatory, but here's a note from one of the two founders of the company, Chris Chen:

For those who are unfamiliar with my company, DessertTruck is a new mobile food concept. Using great ingredients and the highest standards for execution, we bring desserts from the world of fine-dining into the realm of everyday enjoyment. At our mobile food truck, there's no bullshit, no pretension. Just really good desserts. Passion for food is our inspiration. But making people smile, one dessert at a time, is our ultimate goal.

DessertTruck will be opening on Tuesday night at 6PM. Our location is 8th St and University Place, accessible by the 1, A, B, C, D, E, F, V, R, W, and 6 trains.

A PDF of their opening menu can be found here. I've heard the creme brulee is excellent. Go get some dessert from a truck!

-e

How to Shotgun A Beer Bottle

Shotgunning, as many of us know, is a method of chugging a beer, whereby the chugger punches a hole in the side of a beer can, then cracks open the top and sucks down the beer. This is most effective when the hole is made towards the bottom of the can, which is then tilted "up" to it's normal orientation before opening the top of the can.

Recently at a after-work happy hour session, a co-worker informed me about a way to shotgun a beer from a bottle. Clearly, one cannot very well punch a hole in the side of a glass bottle. But, chugging a beer through the mouth of a bottle is difficult given a) the pressure differential created by sucking the beer out of the bottle or b) the relatively slow rate of beer drainage when one simply holds the bottle upside down.

Thus, there is a technique which, according to the omniscient Wikipedia, is known as "strawpedoing, bendy-straw, or shnorkelling." Wiki describes the process as such:

A bendy straw is inserted into the top of the bottle and the small end is bent down and held over the edge of the bottle. To drink, the mouth of the bottle and the elbow of the bendy straw is put in the mouth and upended. The bendy straw ensures a steady flow of air into the bottle, and the drink can therefore be consumed very quickly.

The Wikipedia article notes that people have actually innovated and elaborated upon this idea:

Devices have now been designed in order to both speed up and simplify the process of a strawpedo. The device consists of a large plastic tube with a smaller thinner tube inserted inside it. The large tube is placed over the top of the bottle and the beverage consumed similarly to a standard strawpedo. These are commonly known in the UK as bottle bongs or party shooters.

Who knew? It's really too bad I'm not in college anymore and don't often have to (or want to) shotgun beers. But this knowledge would definitely have come in handy several years ago. Oh well.

...But for those of you who might still be in need of a way to chug large quantities of beer from bottles, do take note.

-e

10 Things I Learned This Weekend

I learned a few things this weekend. Please allow me to share them with you:

1) Don't go apple picking at Wilkens Fruit & Fir Farm up in Yorktown Heights, NY. Their orchards are small, the selection blows, it's very disorganized, and they are grumpy bitches. We were told they charge by the pound... Then when we went to pay for our apples (we had very few due to the poor selection) we were told that we must've heard wrong (great customer service technique, btw), and that they actually charge you $13 for anything equal to or less than a half bag. Anything over that is $23, up to a full bag. I only had a quarter-full bag, so you could imagine I was a little peeved. We found it kind of difficult to believe that 7 intelligent people ALL heard wrong, but whatever. The cashier's defense? They have signs that say differently. That's great, but when an actual person that works at the orchard tells me something, I'm going to assume she knows what she's talking about. Their cider donuts are pretty good, but it's definitely not worth it to have to put up with bitchy 16-year old cashiers that need a good ass-kicking. Save yourself the trouble and go elsewhere.

2) Apple picking is WAY more fun with an old man in a shack that tells you where all the best apples are.

3) Bees really like apple cider. And cider donuts.

4) Apple cider is apparently difficult to make. But mulled cider isn't (provided you already have the cider).

5) Planet Earth is one of the best nature series ever created. You really should watch it.

6) There is a lake in Africa that's 700 meters deep.

7) 1 in 10 people who try to surmount Mt. Everest die trying.

8) Penguins in Antarctica sit around in a giant huddle in -70 degree Celsius weather with no sun, no food, and no water for 4 months. And you thought our winters were bad.

9) Martin Sexton is coming to NYC! And I have tickets. Huzzah!

10) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will almost always make me tear up. That's right. I'm not afraid to say it. I mean, c'mon. How often do you see people doing amazingly nice things for amazingly nice people on TV?

-e

How hard is it to wrap a sub?!

Okay, so today I decided to try something new. Instead of gorging myself on delicious NYC pizza, I went for a healthier option and walked over to Subway instead.

I ordered a Oriental Chinky Chinaman Chicken Onion something-er-other sandwich to go... Now, before I go on, I want to make it known that, having worked in a few food service establishments, I feel somewhat justified criticising stupidity at other food services establishments... if for no other reason than, well, i know I can do a better job, and I have in the past.

Alright... so I walk back to my office and sit down at my desk, very hungry and looking forward to eating my Far East Kung Fu Chicken Sandwich with extra Slanty Eye Terriaki Sauce... I put the bag down on my desk, only to notice there's a weird bulge at the bottom.

"Gee, I think to myself, what could this be? Did my Chinaman try to escape my hungry mandibles?"

Well, long story short, the incompetent Subway worker managed to wrap my sandwich in exactly the wrong way, as to allow all the sandwich contents to spill out of the roll and collect at the bottom of my bag. I had to pick up all the pieces of my Bucktoothed Laundromat-Owning, Supermarket-Running, SARS-Contracting Chicken sandwich and drop them back into my whole wheat roll.

I mean, how hard is it to wrap a sandwich so that the innards don't leak out??

THAT's what I get for being healthy!! Gah!!

-e

Excuse me, waiter...

...There's a bug in my kung-pao chicken!!

A few nights ago, my girlfriend and I went to Chinatown Seafood in Coolidge Corner (Brookline, MA) to get some dinner. It was the night of the blizzard, so the place was nearly empty.

We ordered some soup, a seafood medley, and a plate of kung-pao chicken. After about 45 minutes, everything had come out except the chicken. Shortly thereafter, the waitress came over and annouces, "Here is your kung-pow beef!"

"Um," my girlfriend said, "I ordered kung-pao chicken, not beef." The waitress looked surprised, then slightly offended, as if to say "Of course you ordered the f--ing beef, you idiot." She took the plate back without so much as a sorry and stalked off back to the kitchen. We were pretty sure that we got the order right, since my girlfriend doesn't eat red meat. Anyhow, another 15 minutes expired, along with most of the seafood dish, until finally the waitress came back with the correct dish.

We dug into the steaming plate of chicken, vegetables and peanuts. I was muching happily on the mixture, taking small sips of my Tsing-Tao beer every now and then, when all of a sudden, I hear my girlfriend say in a low, but distressed tone, "EW... Oh ... My... God..."

Now, knowing my girlfriend can be picky about the meat she eats, I expected to look up and see her holding a questionable piece of chicken in her chopsticks. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, I looked up to find her poking at a DEAD BUG that had been mixed in with the rest of the chicken.

I've worked in restaurants before. I know that, sometimes, restaurant kitchens aren't quite as clean as you'd expect them to be. But I've never actually seen this sort of thing happen.

We signaled the waitress again. She came over and almost whisked away the plates without a second glance. We stopped her and pointed out the little creature in our food. Once again, she didn't show the slightest bit of regard for the mistake and said "Oh okay, we'll bring out another one."

When we asked about getting a discount on the check, she said "We don't normally do that. But I'll ask my manager." Right.

In the end, they offered us a 15% discount. Too tired and too nauseous to argue, we just left it at that.

Ugh. Consider yourself warned. Don't ever go over to that awful place. You might eat more than you bargained for.

-e

Popping My White Castle Cherry

Ah, my poor, neglected journal.

This weekend, I had the ultimate pleasure of going to White Castle for the first time. Forget the fact that I had just stuffed myself with Korean food an hour prior to our excursion... This was White Castle, for pete's sake! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to lost my White Castle virginity.

All in all, I must say they were everything I could've hoped for in a 2.5-inch x 2.5 inch square of fast food goodness. My favorite conversation during the meal was Francis trying to convince Becky to try a cheeseburger:

Francis: Becky you have to try a cheeseburger.
Becky: Naw, I'm kinda full actually.
Francis: I will give you 59 cents if you go eat a cheeseburger!

(...sometime later...)

Francis: Becky, are you sure you don't want a cheeseburger? They're so great!
Becky: I don't really like cheese anyway--
Francis: This is NOT cheese!!

Between White Castle and the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ joint we hit up on Friday night, this weekend was truly a culinary horn-o-plenty. mmm MM!

-e