Yesterday afternoon I went to Burger King to use a coupon that I believed entitled me to two hot dogs, an order of fries, and a soda for $4. Unfortunately, I didn’t read it very well. For one thing, there was no drink included. And that’s some bullshit, right there. Drinks are stupid-expensive. Also, I wanted chili and cheese on my dogs, not mustard and relish. So, that cranked it up even higher. By the time I was finished, the tab was just shy of $7. Businesses prey on dumbasses like me.
After I ordered and dutifully shifted to my left, a couple of Middle Eastern men approached the cash register. The cashier, who had been dealt an unfortunate genetic hand, couldn’t understand their accents and things quickly became tense. The men were becoming borderline hostile, and the girl was starting to panic. She called over the manager, who was wearing an ‘I don’t get paid nearly enough for this shit’ expression that I’m VERY familiar with. He was having trouble understanding them too, but managed to successfully navigate the tension and take their order.
And, as the manager walked away in triumph, the relieved cashier chirped, “Your total is $9.11!” She didn’t say “Nine dollars and eleven cents,” she said “9/11.” I about shit. These guys had already demonstrated they weren’t exactly happy-go-lucky, and were all-too-willing to be loudly offended and confrontational. Now this? But, they just paid and dutifully shifted to their left.
I was about halfway through hot dog #1 when somebody began shouting, “We just got a bus! A bus just pulled in!” She was hollering like a person who’d fallen down a well. And within seconds the whole place was filled with what appeared to be young, up-and-coming lesbians in sports uniforms. I have trouble with ages now (is that an old person thing? I’m worried it’s an old person thing), but I estimated they were around 14 years old. And butch as all outdoors.
The noise level in that place went from 2 to 10, in nothing flat. They were all laughing and talking with an exuberance I haven’t felt since Elvis Costello released “Trust.” And I looked over at those Middle Eastern men, sitting in a booth by the window. They both had the same ‘I can’t take much more’ expressions on their faces as I did, and all three of us picked up our eating-pace a notch. It looked like they were having Whopper Juniors, but I can’t be sure.
And I’ll tell you one thing… Those Burger King hot dogs are pretty damn good. Have you had them? This was my second time. I liked them the first go ’round as well, but thought they were too expensive. I believe that’s still true, but was fooled by the coupon. Do you have an opinion on this most pressing of matters? If so, please share.
Before I call it day here, I’d like to ask you guys one more question: What do you think are the most overrated foods? You know, stuff that everybody seems to love and you simply can’t understand why? My vote is an easy one: chicken wings. Everybody, almost literally it seems, goes on and on about their chicken wing obsession. Arguments break out about the restaurants that serve the best wings, and people act like they’re about to whip it out and start in to strokin’ whenever somebody suggests they order wings for dinner.
I sincerely don’t get it. There’s little to no meat, so you’re basically eating what appears to be deep-fried scrotum skin wrapped around a bone and slathered in sauce. It’s not good. Why do people think this is good? It feels like the whole world has been hypnotized by some evil wing baron, and I’m somehow immune. Seriously: WTF?! Give me two or three BK dogs all day long over that bullshit. Wow.
Do you have anything on this one? If so, please use the comments link above or below. Who even knows at this point?
I have to go to work now.
I’ll see you guys again soon. Have a great day!
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Chipotle
Guacamole! What am I missing? Avocado tastes like ass and you can’t fancy it up with all the fixins to make it taste better.
I definitely missed the Guacamole Boat.
Totally agree.
Agreed! For me, having unusual tastes in my early single digit years, guacamole tastes like Elmer’s glue.
Amen! And please, please, PLEASE don’t tell me I just haven’t tried the “right” guacamole. Stuff is AWFUL.
I’m with you folks on this one. I’ve decided that guacamole is the latest “fad food”. It’s like being gluten intolerant is the latest fad, too. I won’t even look at a pile of guacamole!
Great guacamole is great, while bad guacamole is just bad. Seek out the good stuff.
^^Truth
I actually do like guacamole, but I’m one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, so it’s hard to eat it unless it’s homemade without cilantro. Otherwise you’re paying money to bite into bits of soap every two seconds.
The Cilantro Soap taste is genetic. I think mangoes taste like soap
Look up the utube video of Mehicans pissing on the cilantro plants. It gives it the unique flavor.
Agreed.
Cilantro. WTF is that sht. I like mexican food except that “herb”. It’s like your eating the lavender grinding.
Maybe it’s dehydrated goat Anus. Damn.
I was gonna put in my two cents on cilantro as well. I never understood how anyone could tolerate the stuff, much less love it. Then I read that there is some genetic difference in some people (that I obviously share) that makes cilantro taste like dish soap.
Tastes like hand lotion. The highly scented stuff. Nasty.
A good cilantro heavy salsa with chips, I could make a meal out of.
So far I am in total agreement… Cilantro… Tastes like Pine Sol, guacamole…. The Elmer’s glue of foodstuffs. Wings, like pistachios before they had the easily opened shells, too much work for too little reward.
Bagels. Being of Jewish heritage, I’m aware that modern Jewish families obsess about 2 things: baseball and bagels. And while I like a good bagel, I realize that they’re a simple food, just dough, really. Making them is not rocket science, and bagel shops are not deserving of the kind of fanaticism which should be reserved for great sports rivalries.
We once recommended a bagel shop – here in New England – to a cousin who was visiting from bagel ground-zero: the orthodox section of Long Island near Brooklyn. About our recommendation, she said “I can throw a rock from my house, and hit a dozen bagel shops that are each better than anything in New England; so why would I want that?”.
I assume your point was that she couldn’t hit the damn bagel shops with a rock from New England. Love the one you’re with.
In any case, I wouldn’t care about being close to bagel ground zero unless I was also within spreading distance of schmear ground zero.
jtb
I have to admit I like wings, but my complaint is with Burger King. They have some of the best fast food out there when it is done right, but the restaurants in my area maybe get a Whopper cooked properly once every dozen visits or so. The other day, I went into one of the stores and got a Whopper prepared perfectly, and I went back to the counter and shouted my approval to the guys in the kitchen. They may have thought I was crazy, but they were doing something right for a change, and I wanted them to keep doing it. I may go back and get another one this afternoon, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be disappointed.
As far as fads go, I don’t understand why everyone has to put smoked paprika in stuff now. Ketchup, mayo, sausage gravy, jelly, tartar sauce, you name it, and they’ll list it on the damn menu, like they are taunting you. “We’ve added a hand-prepared spice so we can charge you $1.50 for your 5 cent condiment! Aren’t you special?”
I’ve had the BK hot dogs, and I wasn’t impressed. Sonic is way overrated, everything I ever had there sucked, and I’ll never be back. And I live in California, but I seriously don’t understand the fascination with In&Out. Five Guys is so much better at making burgers and fries that I’ll never set foot in an In&Out again. I’m convinced the place only survives because of hipster fan-boy jackasses who eat there because someone told them once it was a cool thing to do. By the way, Guacamole is a pretty decent condiment on Mexican food, and cilantro is kind an acquired taste, I guess. But bagels are stupid. Tasteless chewy bread that wouldn’t even make a decent hamburger bun. And Mayo is the devil’s cum. Anyone who puts that shit on a burger should be forcibly committed.
After all these years, I finally had a Five Guys burger because I met a guy from Seattle for lunch and Five Guys was half way. If all five guys drove 13 miles south to Pick-Quick, a LOCAL, FAMILY-OWNED burger drive-in in Fife, just northeast of Tacoma, they wouldn’t bother to return to their noisy, overpriced halfass “restaurant”. Why, why, why do people think that because a food joint has 400 locations they MUST know what they’re doing?
jtb
Agreed on five guys. Tried it once after reading all the praise. Nope, not great. Not terrible, just average at best.
Five Guys’ burgers are nothing special. The fries – especially the “cajun” ones – are pretty damn good.
Absolutely right on pick quick . That place is the shit. I used to go there back when I worked at Ft Lewis
I haven’t tried the BK dogs yet–they just seem very out of place; kind of like ordering french fries at Krispy Kreme, or something. I did however try their new “Cheetos Chicken Fries” and I am sad to say I was somewhat disappointed. They weren’t bad, but they certainly didn’t possess the cheesiness level I was craving!
Hopefully this falls in the “overrated foods” category: fancy-flavored coffee! Coffee should be coffee-flavored and not all pumpkin-mocha-cinnamon-hazelnut-whatever. Regular cream and real sugar are the only acceptable add-ins.
Flavored coffee beans are soaked in flavor oils to hide the fact that they are in fact terrible tasting beans. Its how they get rid of them. Adding flavored syrup to good coffee beans seems to go against the purpose
Pesto. Nasty.
I’m 50% with you on wings. Despise the part that doesn’t look like a little drumstick. It’s all fatty and greasy and is-it-a-bone-or-a-tendon-y.
Happy Halloween!
Pork roll. WTF? No. Same for scrapple.
Scrapple was my mothers favorite to me it was a meat fruitcake.
I know that as soon as I hit enter, a professional hit will be ordered on my life, but I’m going to say it anyway.
Chik Fil A – WTF is up with the country’s obsession with this crap? Its a crummy chicken sandwich, Yet there is a strange cult following for this place. We got a new store here and people camped out 2 nights before the place opened to be first in line. And there’s a line around the place every day.
Great marketing I guess!
Here’s a review that I think readers of WVSR will enjoy – from a guy in Peoria, IL who visited one. Warning, you will never want to hear Carrot Top and Chik Fil A in the same sentence again!
http://www.meanwhilebackinpeoria.com/blog/2016/10/4/a-year-in-the-life-of-a-sandwich-week-number-18-chick-fil-a
By the way, I also agree with Jeff re: Guacamole. Anytime someone calls it gwock I feel like hurling. Yuck.
Food fads piss me off.
Sourdough. We had a great little bakery near us that had a nice variety of products. They got bought out by a local small chain, and now every single thing is sourdough. Give it a rest.
Citra hops. Beer does not taste like grapefruit. When you put that shit in beer, it is no longer beer, it is sewage. It’s not hip and cool, it’s retarded and criminal. Stop it.
Garlic. Not everything should contain garlic, and that which should, should not taste only like raw garlic, unless you’re preparing a bowl of raw garlic. It doesn’t make food “exciting” to just dump a shovel full of crushed garlic into it. That makes it inedible to many people. Learn to moderate ingredients and maybe you too can become an adequate cook.
I like wings, at least from my local dive bar. And I’m the oddball that likes the flapper over the drumettes.
I agree on BK hot dogs. They are reasonably good compared to the standard dog.
I also don’t get the In&Out craze.
If you don’t care for guac, don’t move anywhere from TX to CA. It’s friggin’ EVERYWHERE.
Agree 100% with wings and guacamole. And I can add sauerkraut to that too. Why not just drink a bottle of vinegar instead??? And all gourds too, especially the oh-so-popular eggplant. Will make one exception for pumpkin pie though….
Quinoa. Tasteless pellets that, if after having a bite and smile, you resemble a Goddam Jack o lantern. Ditto for Brown rice in the tasteless category.
Hummus. Yeah it’s tasty but it’s not over the top to die for.
Kale. I’d rather have a plate of flatulence.
Kale and quinoa, yes. These have no appeal. I’m not sure why they exist: what problem do they solve?
Also, the nine billion kinds of ever-hotter hot sauce. I like the spicies, but I do not require to have my head torn off.
As far as I’m concerned, Kale and Quinoa are better off as the names of a two-girl stripper act that smear hot sauce on each other as part of their shtick. Which is a better use of hot sauce than seeing which fool can eat the hottest to establish which fool thinks he has the largest shtick. It’s pretty small. Learn to live with it without wrecking your digestive system.
jtb
I read somewhere that before the Kale fad hit, Pizza Hut was the largest purchaser. 90% of the crop was used to decorate the salad bar.
I read the exact same thing. Kale is garnish.
I have not been in a Burger Thing in some time, and so missed the hot dogs. Their food, generally, is like McDonald’s in that it’s actually not bad if prepared correctly and served fresh. But usually it is neither.
I make wings and the obligatory bleu cheese dressing – and also guacamole – at home, and they are all pretty damn good if I say so myself. And I do.
The most overrated foods are the ones I like to call “picnic foods.” You know, the ones everyone brings to every family function and pot-luck luncheon: deviled eggs, pickled eggs, potato salad, macaroni salad, layered lettuce salad, baked beans, crock pot o’ meatballs, pasta salad, casseroles, and so forth. *Gag* And don’t even get me started on how highly perishable most of these foods are, and how they are usually set out in the open for hours at social functions, often in the hot summer sun, with flies landing occasionally… Blech!
Almost forgot farro. I’ll generalize to include any nonstandard grains.
Quinoa is a member of the Goosefoot genus, which also includes, but is certainly not limited to, white goosefoot, nickel greens, dungweed, bathua, chandali, chandaliya, fat hen, lamb’s quarters, pigweed and tree spinach. It’s a damn fine genus unless you enjoy, you know, food.
jtb
Definitely “Buffalo wings,” …custom morsels made from end-of-the-evening kitchen scraps for drunk hungry patrons at the Anchor bar in Buffalo NY. Had this idea occurred earlier in the evening, the fad may have been “Buffalo thighs” or Buffalo breasts” which by name alone, would merit more enthusiasm than over priced, scrotatious “Buffalo wings.” I don’t get it.
I got food poisoning from In and Out in CA, my very first time in the late 1980’s, and have never been back. My mistake for ordering the burger medium rare, but it was unimpressive and made me sick, emitting unpleasantness from both ends of my digestive system for two days.
A friend of mine once went on a cross-country tour in search of the perfect burger – he swears by the Whataburger in Russellville, Arkansas, right off of I-40. But that was quite some time ago, not sure if they are even still in business.
I’m gonna take a lot of heat for this, but here goes:
Guinness.
Maybe I’m a total philistine, but I just don’t see the attraction. Like Starbuck’s Coffee, Guinness strikes me as dark, bitter, overpriced, and consumed largely by people who do so because they think it makes them seem cool and with-it.
No flak from me, a pint of Guinness is a poor drink. Guinness is fine as an ingredient (steak, Guinness, and mushroom pie etc), but a pint of it? No.
Same with Starbucks. The only way to make all of the Starbucks coffee in the world taste the same is to burn the shit out of it during the roasting process, and then let it drip for 21 seconds while brewing for that subtle afterburn. For the love of God, how do people get sucked into buying cup after cup of that shit? I know it’s the same people who go to Taylor Swift concerts and buy her records and for the same reason: so every experience will be exactly the same and, in the end, you’ll get burned. Oh oh, I’m saying what I think again.
jtb
Starbucks tastes like crap–no disagreement here.
People like Charbucks because they get a small shot of espresso to add a little roasty flavor to their giant mugs of sugar ‘n’ dairy. If you actually like coffee, then Fourbucks is not the right place.
I am a coffee geek wannabe, and it is my position that as you roast the bean darker, you will taste more of the roast and less of the bean. I don’t know for a fact that *$ uses inferior beans, but a super-dark roast would be one way to disguise it if they did. All of their coffees, IME, are roasted a step darker than anyone else. That is, their medium is similar to anyone else’s dark.
No disagreement here.
Fountain drinks…That’s how they get you.
I concur on the chicken wings.
The “trendy” Deep Fried shit. (Oreo’s, Twinkies, etc.) We’re not talking traditional things like fried chicken, potatos, and country fried steak, as they are a staple of my diet. Deep fried bacon is the exception, of course.
I forgot to mention the liquid chees, like Arby’s has for the Beef N Cheddar, is one of the most disgusting things ever put on this planet, man made or natural.
Insanely hot foods
Ghost peppers
Atomic chicken wings
Why would you want to eat food that hurts? Want to do something manly? join the army
Holy Shit! Old friend. Where the fuck has this type of writing gone. You are always entertaining but…….”the cashier had been dealt an unfortunate genetic hand” and “an exuberance I haven’t felt since Elvis Costello released Trust.” Fucking classic JK!!! Don’t get me wrong. You’re still the best pal. Only website/blog that I read daily. I incorporate some of your phrases in my everyday life just to appear clever. Good post Jeff.
This topic, a fine one with a fine post, ran out of inertia two days ago. Just wondering whether there is related subject matter to help limp through until Monday. Isn’t there an election or something coming up?
jtb
One of the candidates likes his steak cooked so much it “audibly rocks on the plate” according to his former butler. I couldn’t in good conscience vote for such a person.
Turkey. It’s awful.