Far be it from me to suggest conspiracy theories, but Yelp can be easily manipulated by stores that crave good reviews.  This isn’t a new concept, but it still makes me question the motivation of most posters.  It’s hard enough to form one’s own opinion on a restaurant’s food, atmosphere and service without secretly wondering if this place has been recommended to you by the restaurant manager posing as Suzie Q.

Ah, and the ranking system.  Any time you go from 1-5, one would expect rankings to reflect the following logic when ranking a restaurant:

1: Terrible service, terrible location, food was almost inedible.
2: Food was actually okay, but rest of experience was lacking
3: Everything was mediocre
4: Decent service, food was great
5: Already thinking about returning

I had a LOT of problems writing number 2. Why aren’t there four stars? Let’s look at some reviews and try and determine the metric for a 2 star rating.

“Yeah.. I know I will get crap for this.. and I know it’s a very unChicago thing to say… but I find corn bread crust yucky. I hate cornbread, so don’t make a pizza out of it…The ingredients were fresh and tasty. I also didn’t think that the “large” pizza warranted the large moniker. It was more like a medium. For more than 2 people, I’d definitely recommend more than 1 pizza.”

Laura does not like corn bread crust, so the establishment immediately loses some stars. But is every pizza made with cornbread crust? Also, why apologize for your opinion when writing an opinion-based review? The ingredients were fresh and tasty, but the pies were too small. I’m not sure I get it. Is a two star review always so muddled and confusing? Based on the content of the review, I would’ve given the place a 3-star rating. But let’s see some other 2-star gems. Dave S. similarly complains about the size of Pizano’s pizzas:

“The were probably the smallest and most overpriced large pizzas that I have ever had. They were not even that good. I paid nearly $90 for four pizzas that were supposed to be large but were more like mediums in the real world. Come on with the toppings guys, these pizzas were very, very bare. I was not really impressed with them at all.”

Uh, woof. Notice his comment about “real world medium pizzas.” What does that even really mean? What is the gold standard size-wise for a large pizza? Are we talking deep-dish or thin crust? This is all getting very confusing. Let’s confuse things even more by adding Dave S.’s reasoning behind his two-star rating:

Crust = very good

Toppings = very skimpy

Quick Delivery = Nope, very slow

Friendly Service = “Leave the attitudes at home, I am paying you good money here”

Price = Not worth it at all

So he hates the price, the service, the delivery time and the toppings. And he only likes the crust of the pizza? This looks like a 1-star rating to me.

Also, I’ll also add that the whole, “I’m paying you GOOD MONEY, so ACT like it,” bit. If you write that in a review, you’re asking to be treated like a jerk.  Yes, you have paid these people to offer you a service, but don’t act like you paid their future kids college education off.  This pizza delivery person is  a human being.  You tip them 15-20% and shut the door in their faces.  What more do you want?

Perhaps Christina S. will be more honest with her ranking?

“I picked Pizano’s because it’s close to the Contemporary Art Museum and had a four-star rating. Yelp, you’ve done me wrong…Our deep-dish pizza was thin, watery, and undercooked, and my fettuccine dish was totally unappetizing. The nail in the coffin was the smoking policy, though. No smoking within 15 feet of the bar. Well, my friends, the bar runs along one side of the dining room and the building itself is no more than 20 feet wide. What a joke.”

Alright, now we’re talking! Food that is awful and looks awful! A watery deep-dish pizza is a blasphemous thing indeed, and a critique of the establishment’s smoking policy which is now rendered moot by Illinois’s smoking ban in restaurants and bars helps lower the bar. The location is lauded as well, making this a solid two-star rating.

Using a small sample size has shown us some small truths about Yelp, namely that you can’t really trust a rating.  People have different levels of taste and shifting palates, and Phil’s 2 star rating could be Janet’s 5 star meal-gasm.

I plan to further delve into my conspiracy theory that half of every restaurant’s positive reviews are written by employees.  If you have any first-hand accounts of any such heinous acts of deception, you can email me at hugedays@gmail.com.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Pizza has been a large part of my life, as you can tell by my posting history.  Today I don’t want to strictly speak of pizza, but of pizza expectations.

The Rolling Stones once wrote, “You can’t always get what you want.”  And Charles Dickens once wrote, “WTF?  I went to this pizza joint in Andersonville and tried to order a pepperoni pizza and they wouldn’t make it for me.  So much for my great expectations!”  A blessing and a curse, people are curious about this small pizza joint because of an article in a men’s magazine.  That’s it.  Of course, a lot of people just skimmed it, which is, well, quite evident from the behavior of customers I witnessed.

1. If you want a pepperoni pizza, go to Domino’s.

One guy who sits down near my group of friends is threatening to do just that.  He’s incensed.  He read that stupid article in GQ and wants the best pizza in America, damn it!  The staff sighs and points to the chalkboard, where 3 pre-determined pies are available for order.  On a given night (depending on the availability of fresh produce and meat), there is usually a veggie pizza, a meat pizza and a white available to order.  All are $20 plus a pizza.  They don’t make pizza on demand.  The guy gets up with his girlfriend (who is hilariously mortified) and leaves.  The waitress shrugs and tells us it happens at least three times a night at this point.

2. If you want a short wait, go to Pizza Hut

If you go to the Yelp page devoted to Great Lake, most commenters complain about the wait.  Waiting half an hour to forty five minutes for a pizza is, seemingly, forever.  Hmm…why don’t we look at home-made pizza recipes online and see how long they take to cook?  Well, most recipes have a pizza cooking for 20 to 30 minutes.  So, wait.  Because the GQ article predisposes you to the idea that the wait is long, waiting a completely normal amount of time for a pizza to cook is too long?  A freaking Digiorno takes 23 minutes, for christ sake.  You’re here to eat quality food, not a fucking Marie Calendar’s Insta-meal.  Waiting an extra 15-20 minutes never killed anyone.  Unless you’re insane and under the assumption that eating uncooked pizza is great.  Or you eat raw dough.  Weirdo.

3. If you want to make snap judgements

Go to Yelp!  There are millions of them!  In fact, I’m thinking I should start combing the catacombs of the webbernet looking for the worst and most obnoxious Yelp! reviews out there.  You know the ones I’m talking about:

Karen M. – This place sux!!!  My mom’s pizza is SOOOOOOOOOOOO much better.  And the service was trble.  Awful.

WHO GIVES A SHIT?!  You don’t go to a restaurant to eat your mom’s pizza.  And as I will point out in the upcoming weeks, the reason it doesn’t taste like your family meals is because YOU SPENT AT LEAST FIVE YEARS BEING EXPOSED TO THE COOKING IN YOUR HOME.  You build up a natural affinity for your mother/father’s cooking (as long as it doesn’t suck butt), and it tastes specific and wonderful.  It should.  But when you go out to eat at a specialty pizza shop like Great Lake Pizza expecting everything to be traditional and just like home cooking, you should just cut yourself some slack.  Stay home.  Order in from Sarpino’s, they have those trucks and their fliers are everywhere!  Kick back and enjoy your perfectly bland experience as you watch reruns of “Farscape.”

Because heaven forbid that anything is new or different!  You might just have to complain to an online review site and potentially ruin other people’s experiences with completely groundless claims of mediocrity.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Great Lake is a fine pizza establishment with wonderful pizza made with farm-fresh produce and meats.  Just order it for pick up if you’re a pansy and can’t wait a bit.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Flavor: A little bit of honey, a little bit of peanut and cashew, and a little bit of cardboard.  It somehow manages to taste dry.  It’s as if they are actively trying to make me not like granola.

Texture: Flavor like cardboard, and sadly textured like cardboard.  It crumbled in my mouth, but in a strange manner.  I can imagine eating Styrofoam and getting the same affect.  In fairness, chunks of it were okay.  Thankfully the peanuts actually crunched like nuts.  Otherwise I would assume I’m just eating a spherical NASA-substance meant for astronauts containing nutrients but no actual food.

Appearance: Oh god, SO STRANGE.  I enjoy granola because there are giant glaciers of flavor amidst bits and chunks.  The flotsam and jetsam at the bottom of the bag are part of the deal for me, so it was strange to see this bag full of intact granola glaciers.  I blame this on my own pre-conceived notion of granola, but still, so bizarre.  Kind of looks like an owl pellet sans the bones and feathers.  Appetizing!

Verdict: I’d never buy them, but that’s because I enjoy either home-made or at least hand-made granola.  They should stick to the granola bars, because these nuggets seem like uncooked balled-up versions of the bars yet to be rolled out.  Once again, a simple all-natural food falls prey to mass production’s soul-crushing maw.

Image from the General Mills website, product received through MyBlogSpark.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

It took a while to summon the courage to open the Pineapple Jerky package. Not because the product was so daunting, I just have a hard and fast rule to avoid eating anything that so directly resembles an asshole.   However, with great trepidation I opened it up and tore a piece off.

The first bite was delicious, tasting still sweet and almost juicy, the pineapple didn’t disappoint. The honey used to help “jerky” it was also evident in a delightful manner. Each bite was chewy and delicious, without being too tough or difficult to eat. Tearing bits off with my teeth was no problem. The center of the piece was a bit more difficult to bite through initially, but it too gave way.

In terms of taste, the pineapple was delightful. It did have a flavor similar to that of a Fruit Rollup, although the consistency was different; albeit not by much. However, if you’re a hippy parent who doesn’t want to give their child a factory processed piece of edible plastic, this would serve as a tasty and reasonable solution.

Was it jerky? Well, sorta. I’m not quite sure what the difference between this and a normal dried piece of pineapple is; perhaps it is the honey that makes all the difference. Or perhaps it’s just the name. Regardless, it was a very munchable snack, despite it’s unfortunate similarity to the human anus. In taste, it is clearly not similar.

If you can get past the visual (which admittedly was difficult for me) this is a snack that anyone would be happy to have packed, whether you’re going to school, hiking or taking in a baseball game.

Pineapple Jerky is available at Jerky.com.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

In no way am I calling for a bacon boycott.  I will still consume bacon on a semi-regular basis.

I’m just sick of the saturation.  Bacon in every food imaginable.  Bacon on t-shirts.  Bacon lube.  Bacon alternative fuel.  Bacon-replicas of famous bacon-cities and bacon-landmarks.  Bacon  has made its mark, but something occurred two days ago that made me believe that bacon is over.

Eick gives me coupons for free Taco Bell, so of course my interest is piqued by whatever insane burrito/taqui/nacho creation they are featuring.  In this case, it is the blood pressure escalator New Bacon Cheesy Potato Burrito. Stare at the picture.  Become mesmerized by the weird ground beef.  The strange bacon pieces.  The traditional oozing cheese, sour cream and special sauce exuding from within.

My first bite is awful.  All potato and sour cream.  And with the second bite, I encounter something soggy, wet, and long.  I pull it out of my mouth quickly.  BACON.  Not a neat little bacon crisp as shown in the advertisements, but a terrifying microwaved bit of porkstuff that had not crisped.  It has simply gone limp, like the body of a drowning victim.

Eating an entire Bacon Cheesey Potato Burrito is possible.  One must be intoxicated, and not eating any breakfast or lunch should help.  Otherwise, you’re in a for a horrible state of being – over-full.  You know, that feeling you get after you accidentally eat a foot-long sub even though you promised your girlfriend you’d save the other half for later?  Or you eat five plates of China Buffet King just because?  Any simple task after this act of consumption terrorism is simply impossible.  It’s as if your stomach is holding your body prisoner.  And the bacon……….oh man…

I tried.  I really did.  I wanted to write a point-by-point review of this Bacon Abomination, but my taste buds and stomach told me otherwise.  I felt nauseous from eating this Taco Bell product, which is painful for me to admit.  I’ve stood by Taco Bell for years, espousing it as the greatest late-night fast food option in existence.  Sober or intoxicated, veg or non-veggie, I defended it.

Who cares if the meat has the texture of belly button lint?  Who cares if the special sauce tastes like two week old mayo left out in the sun?  Taco Bell rarely has anything on the menu too insane to try, and…well…

I BLAME BACON!!!

The internet, newsprint and food television have created a perfect storm of bacon.  If you’re a fast food chain without bacon, GOD HELP YOU.  Bloggers won’t blog about you, twitterer’s won’t tweet shit, and people still reading the newspaper will bemoan the crumbling state of newsprint rather than try your bacon-less drivel.

I demand we take back bacon by not mentioning it every five seconds when talking about food.  In ten years time, bacon should then be under-appreciated, and we can all join together and start Bacon Fad 2.0 in 2019.

But for now, thanks to massive over-exposure and Taco Bell, me and bacon won’t be speaking for a while.  If you run into bacon on the street or something, just tell him I meant to call last night.  And yeah, I’ll totally call bacon back tomorrow, it’s just that I lost my phone.  And my facebook password.  Someone poke bacon for me.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Today, July 2nd, McDonald’s introduced a new burger to their menu across the nation.  The Angus Third Pounders are the first new burgers the company has launched since the Big ‘N Tasty in 2001, this after two years of test marketing.

McDonald’s was kind enough to overnight me some coupons so that I could try these new Angus burgers today, the day they were released.  While that sounds like a nice gesture, it is actually a bold move on McDonald’s part, considering the last time they sent me a gift card, I absolutely ripped them for their idiotic Olympic promotion on Friendster. Yes, Friendster.

Let it be known to the world: I HATE McDonald’s burgers. Big Mac? More like big crap.  McChicken or chicken nuggets, sure sign me up, but McDonald’s burgers are terrible.  Burger King and Wendy’s both have far superior burgers. But I’m here to serve you, the readers, not myself, so I trudged over to McDonald’s today with a couple co-workers to give these bad boys a try.  Let me say this, and this is no joke: this was the best McDonald’s burger I’ve ever had. Seriously. Ever. I know I just set the bar low in terms of its other burgers, but this easily surpassed them all.

There are three different varieties available: Deluxe, Bacon & Cheese and Mushroom Swiss.  I went with the Deluxe, which features mayo (trying to eat healthier, so I passed), mustard, lettuce, tomato, dill pickles, American cheese and red onion.  My cohorts sampled the other two.

The first thing I noticed was that the burger they served me actually LOOKED like the picture of the burger on the menu. Astonishing. That pretty much never happens.  Biting into it I was pleasantly surprised. The meat, while still inferior to the unfrozen beef of a Five Guys type burger, tasted noticeably better than the average McDonald’s burger.  The bun was fresh and tasty, and the veggies, my goodness, the veggies were the freshest I’ve ever had on a McDonald’s burger.  My colleagues agreed, noting everything tasted fresher than normal and the bacon was perfectly crispy.  Plus, the burger is noticeably heftier than some of their other offerings.

This is when the McDonald’s supplied fact sheet came in handy. According to its fact sheet, McDonald’s introduced four totally new ingredients to the menu with the launch of this burger: bacon, swiss cheese, red onion and sauteed mushrooms.  Wait a second I thought, McDonald’s has NEVER served a bacon burger before? But seriously, that’s accurate. Think about it. While other fast food chains got swept up in the bacon craze, McDonald’s NEVER introduced a bacon burger. Unbelievable! This also marks the first ever use of swiss cheese, mushrooms or red onions (most burgers have white onions) by the chain.  Bravo McDonald’s, welcome to the bacon craze and welcome to the 21st century of expanding palates.

At $4, the burger isn’t cheap, I might still rather have a couple McChickens for half the price, or pay an extra buck for a Five Guys burger.  However, the quality is a noticeable step up from usual McDonald’s fare. I can’t imagine I’ll be back at a McDonald’s anytime soon, as I avoid that place like the plague, but for those of you that regularly frequent it, you might want to give this burger a try.

Click below the fold to read details on how you can win free Angus burgers!

Update: Winners have been chosen and are being mailed their gift cards. Thanks everyone!

I have five cards for a free Angus burger to giveaway to my readers. You have until Friday, July 10th to enter.

Two ways to win:

1. Leave a comment saying why you love, hate or feel indifferent towards McDonald’s.  I will pick three of these comments at random to win.

2. Join the So Good Facebook Fan Page and/or follow So Good on Twitter. I will pick two people at random who join the group or start following So Good on Twitter between now and July 10th.

Good luck everyone!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Pictures via Beef Jerky Reviews and Snack Patrol.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When you enter Z Burger you are confronted with a menu almost identical to Five Guys – fries, single or double burgers, cheese burgers or bacon cheese burgers, plus a list of 20 or so toppings, all at no extra charge.  The differentiation from Five Guys comes in the form of additional menu items – cheesesteaks, onion rings and about 70 different milkshakes, with flavors ranging from Birthday Cake to Peanut Butter & Jelly.

We placed our order and our burger arrived wrapped in tinfoil adorned with the Z Burger logo:

A healthy sized burger for sure, and as I always do, I loaded it up with almost every topping available:

The burger is juicy and tasty, although a little cleaner and less greasy than a Five Guys burger. It lacks the depth of greasy flavor most Five Guys burgers have, but hits about 90% of the flavor notes necessary for a good burger.  On to the sides:

The fries might actually be slightly better than Five Guys. They have a good fresh taste and are complemented perfectly with vinegar.  But after that, we moved on to the real star of the Z Burger show, the onion rings:

Click below to keep reading for more photos and thoughts on Z Burger!

Put simply: these are da bomb.  Lots of breading that is perfectly crispy and manages to stay flavorful without being greasy.  One of the most jonestastic things about eating onion rings is when you bite into one and end up pulling out a huge piece of onion, leaving you with an empty shell of onion-less breading. It sucks, but it’s inevitable, it always happens at least once an order with onion rings. But not with these onion rings my friends. I have now had them three times, and every single time the onion rings break off into perfectly balanced bites.  For some extra flavor, try dipping them in the Z Sauce, which is essentially a hybrid of russian dressing and remoulade sauce.

People, people, we haven’t even gotten to the shakes! I had a strawberry cheesecake which was perfectly solid, but unspectacular. My friend got a rocky road shake:

On my most recent visit to Z burger I got a Peanut Butter & Jelly shake, which I was curious to try. Sure enough, it tastes EXACLTLY like peanut butter & jelly. Unfortunately I realized about 5 sips in that is not a flavor combo I can drink 16 oz’s of without feeling a bit bloated and nauseous.

Overall Z Burger is very solid. Those who say it is better than Five Guys have a pretty good case to make – the burger is of almost equivilant flavor, but less greasy, while the onion rings are outstanding and the shakes get the job done while giving you incredible selection.  There are two locations in DC right now, TenleyTown and Glover Park, but expect Z Burger to keep expanding to Dupont, Chinatown and other neighborhoods.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

A while back, a friend of So Good blog, Bacon Freak, sent a care package to the SG World HQ with a number of their baconcentric products.  The one I found most interesting was their Maple Bacon Pancake Mix.
Last weekend, I decided to try it out.  One reason I chose this item was my love for flapjacks, almost any time of day.  Plain buttermilk are my favorite, but sometimes I like to change things up.  This was certainly one of those times.

Now we all know about the bacon craze that is going on, so for people that are true bacon buffs, these pancakes are for you.  I first appreciated their potency when I first opened the bag of mix, and my nostrils were filled of the aroma of a smokehouse.  Powerful stuff.  This mix only required water, so making the batter was a snap.  I soon had it ready to go in my hot skillet. 

The batter had pieces of real bacon as well as what they call “maple chunks.” 

The perfectly cooked item:

Overall, these pancakes had a serious bacon flavor far beyond the actual bacon pieces in the mix.  This flavor really drowned out any maple sweetness provided by the maple pieces, which seemed to melt during cooking.  If you are hard core into bacon, this mix is recommended.  If not, proceed with caution. 

Also check out their bacon jerky selection – the Summer BLT being a fave.
H/t to Wikimedia for the HQ shot.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Update: MixMyGranola is offering a $3 off coupon to all So Good readers.  Just enter SOGOOD at the checkout to get $3 off you final order.

Thanks to the generous folks at Mix My Granola, the So Good World Headquarters recently received an offer to try a food item I love, namely granola.  I eat this stuff all the time, and consider myself quite a connoisseur – so I jumped at the chance.  I was not let down.

As the company name implies, you are able to design a custom combination of ingredients to satisfy whatever tastes you want to put together.

My choices: Organic Granola base, Organic Raisins, Cranberries, Pecans, Walnuts, Organic Flax Seeds and Organic Coconut Shreds.

Now I went relatively healthy, but they have a ton of options – everything from candy corn and gummy bears to dried melon and macadamia nuts.  They also have pre-made combos, but those aren’t nearly as fun.  The order came loose in a tube, with the nutrition info for the specific contents detailed on the label.  (I would have preferred a bag inside the cylinder to keep the contents a little less shaken, but that was not the biggest deal.)

Here is what my mix looked like:

Pure and simple.  And it was good too – I had it with skim milk, and it had a subtle amount of sweetness that was just right for me. Not nearly enough pecans and walnuts for my liking, but overall quite tasty.
Now the price tag on my custom job was not cheap – around $14 with shipping.  But where else can you get this kind of personalized granola?  Not at Whole Foods, I can tell you that.

But don’t take it from me, you can make your own combination with a free $20 gift card for whatever mix strikes your fancy.

All you have to do is comment on this post, and, if possible, link back to this post via tweet or on your blog and/or put So Good in your blogroll.  We will choose the most enthusiastic reader over the next few days.

H/t to Roadside for the HQ pict.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Idea:  Take the Big Three pizza toppings from any NYC pizza-eatery (Parmesan cheese, oregano, red pepper flakes) and combine them in one easy-to-use container.  You now have Pizza Zing! And yes, if you didn’t know what the Big Three Pizza Toppings were, you’ve never eaten New York City pizza.  And if I may go one step further, if you reveal this to a native New Yorker, you will most likely be pelted by shoes.  Beware the truth, it hurts. Like thousands of New York City shoes, raining down from the heavens.

Presentation: It’s essentially a modernized Parmesan cheese container, as it should be.  Its ridiculously bright yellow and red color scheme makes me think about eating pizza, which is strange.  Perhaps this container has a hypnotizing effect? So yeah, bonus points for making me wonder if I’m getting programmed a la Manchurian Candidate.

Favorite Visible Catch-Phrase: FLAVORFUL HEAT!  Oh wow.  LOVING THIS CATCHPHRASE.  Let it roll off your tongue.  Use it as your Facebook status.  Let’s get together and create the new meme: FLAVORFUL HEAT. Just as one can apply Pizza Zing to any food, apply Flavorful Heat to any situation or person. Trust me, this is the new FAIL.

Taste: We made an incredible mistake in ordering a deep dish pizza from Edwardo’s, one of the great Chicago deepdisheries. Myself and my companions applied vigorous amounts of Pizza Zing to the pizza, making sure to fit the word ZING! into the conversation as much as possible. This was fun. However, I would not advise one to apply Pizza Zing to top-of-the-line pizza products. It’s powerful stuff, and the 7 spices completely overwhelm the 2 “hearty” cheeses the bottle advertises.  I mean, throwing red, jalapeno and cayenne pepper into the spice-blend is one thing, but adding in habanero as well? Overkill in my honest opinion, especially for those with an aversion to truly spicy seasoning. Remove the habanero, and lazy people every may indeed rejoice in a spice combo that will aid in pizza-loving.

The Verdict: While spicy and flavorful, Pizza Zing lends itself to the frozen pizza crowd.  On a Tombstone, Digiorno’s or Red Baron, this topping would help kick the flavor up a notch. Will it replace my Frank’s Hot Sauce or Sriracha hot sauce? No, probably not. But if you’re jonesing for those pizza seasonings, and find yourself bereft of a local shop that sells slices, Pizza Zing is right up your ally.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

So, this is my swan song kids. It has been a great experience writing for So Good but life has been crazy lately and I feel these columns have been a bit lacking. I only want to best for you so I decided to have some dignity and step away.

This final entry may seem sort of a bust, but it holds some personal meaning to me. I would beg and plead my mom for this stuff when I was a kid. I wanted this more than lunchables or fruit roll-ups…both verboten items in our house. Apparently, she did not love me; she declared it “inedible” and “garbage”. I now have the ability to put whatever crap I want in my body…so here it is:

Smell: MMMM..peanut butter. I like peanut butter. I am sure you like peanut butter. Just go with it.

Appearance/Texture: It looks pretty inoffensive. Where can you go wrong with grape jelly and creamy peanut butter? Sure, I like it chunky and raspberry is clearly the superior fruit preserve, but this gets an A for effort. I decided to ignore the excessive bubbles in the jelly…denial, not just a river in Egypt.

Taste: Clearly, my mother hates me. There is nothing wrong with this. It is heaven on a spoon, nirvana on my tongue. It is happiness in my mouth.

Final verdict: My childhood was a lie. Mommy, why don’t you love me?

************************************

Lemmonex thanks you for putting up with her crap and reading her blog…she will miss you.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Health food. Herring in sour cream. Does not compute.

I’ve had my eye on this one for a while, but the fear has always stopped me. It is extreme. This week I put on my big girl panties and grabbed the jar. Pray for me.

Smell: Like pickles and fish. The pickled scent comes from the vinegar listed on the ingredient list. For the first time I seriously considered not eating a product. I knew I had to perservere.

Appearance/Texture: It looked like creamy baby vomit with large silvery chunks. The cold sour cream felt like death and sadness on my tongue.

Taste: When I started this column, I made a promise to Eick that I would not swear. I don’t think he is watching so I am letting it rip: this was the most fucking disgusting shit I have ever eaten. The fish and the vinegar and the creaminess made me gag. I am a woman with a strong constitution and I nearly lost my dinner.

Final Verdict: Are you kidding me? Really?! Step away from the fish in a jar.

**********************************************

Lemmonex writes almost daily about food, life, and her fear of children on her blog, Culinary Couture.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When I stumbled across this packet of horror in the supermarket, I was riveted. Could this actually be good? Could I ever be hungry enough to actually consume this? Egads, what if I like this? It just didn’t seem appetizing but I wanted to keep an open mind.

Smell: Like plastic. Gag inducing. Things did not look good.

Appearance/Texture: Well, look at the photo. Does this seem like something you would want to eat? It is gooey, mushy, and sticky. If glue and paste drank too many Amaretto Sours one night and things got a little out of hand, this would be their inter-adhesive love child. The chicken looked like a year old sponge that had spent too much time in a tanning bed. I searched vehemently for the broccoli in this “meal” until I realized the teeny flecks I assumed were pepper had a green hue.

Taste: Not so bad. I was expecting much worse. It was not nearly as salty or wretched as I anticipated. It didn’t have must taste at all. There was a plasticky undertone but this packet of culinary shame benefited from low expectations.

Final Verdict: Do yourself a favor and do not even look at this. Do humanity a favor and refuse to buy this. We need it off the street. It is for the children. We must save them.

************************************************

Lemmonex writes almost daily about food, life and how much she just wants to be held at her blog, Culinary Couture.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The one beacon of hope on these rides was “South of the Border”. If you have driven through North and South Carolina, you know exactly what I am talking about. Starting about 220 miles from the border, garish florescent signs signal the impending arrival of what appears to be the best place on Earth.

In reality, South of the Border may be the saddest place in the whole entire world…or at least in the Carolinas. It is run down and dirty and depressing….but you can get fireworks! Not all is lost. One of my most vivid memories of those soul sucking trips to South of the Border was coercing my father to buy me “Ginger Beer”. He told me I would hate it…and I did. It was pungent and far too harsh for my gentle, young taste buds.

I often think of Ginger Beer and shudder. My surprisingly sharp memory has retained the exact taste of it for years. Besides having a mind like a steel trap, I also have a masochistic streak. I decided to take this beverage for another spin. Consider it your holiday gift from me.

Smell: Not shockingly, the scent of ginger is very strong. The smell is reminiscent of pickled ginger.

Texture/Appearance: As one might imagine a beverage to be, it is wet. What really disturbed me was the presence of chunks. Yes, there were chunks in my beverage. You know what I don’t want in my soda? Detris. All I could think of was backwash. I was not in a good frame of mind.

Taste: It really isn’t my scene. It is very aggressive; the ginger practically attacks you. I cannot imagine drinking one of these as I ate my lunch or some such. There is nothing refreshing about it. It is really, super pungent.

Final verdict: No thanks. If you love ginger, you may like this…but I will pass. The chunks were a huge turn-off and it only got worse from there.

**********************************************

Lemmonex writes almost daily about food, life, and all the ways she has been naughty and nice at her blog, Culinary Couture.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites