Tag: food

I bet this never happens at a Canadian Timmy’s

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NYPost: altercation at an Indiana Tim Horton’s over an argument about a drive-thru order results in a 75-year old woman dead

I’d be curious to know what exactly happened in this scenario to where things escalated to physical violence.  I’ve had my share of fast food fuckups, and even if I cared enough to expend the effort to try and get it rectified, I can’t say I’ve had a low success rate at some sort of resolution.

It’s like, just remaining calm and not being a dick seems to a good enough strategy at achieving some sort of recompense, so I can’t help but wonder what happened at this Indiana Tim Horton’s, where an irate 75-year old woman marched into the restaurant, got in the grill of a 17-year old drive thru worker before their 20-year old manager intervened, to where things escalated even further, to where it became physical.

Tim Horton’s iced capps are definitely on my Rushmore of fast food items, but fuck if I’m going to risk my life if someone there possibly fucked up my order.

Watching the video, it’s scary and unfortunate to see the escalation of a conflict get physical, and to the point where death entered the chat, because there is seldom anything funny about the loss of life.

In one hand, I can’t help but feel inclined to side with the restaurant, because the elderly woman did march in there and seem to aggress with minimal restraint.  And when things get physical, people have the right to defend themselves.  But in the other hand, it was a 75-year old woman; obviously most of us probably aren’t experts at hand-to-hand combat with 75-year olds, but how hard could she have hit to incense a 20-year old to fight back with such fierceness?

Either way, it’s a scenario where everyone involved loses.  A woman lost her life, the employee that fought her will probably need therapy for the rest of their life knowing that their actions contributed towards it, and Tim Horton’s name gets dragged down into the muck by having a customer death controversy tied to their brand.

Plus, the daughter of the deceased takes some shrapnel for getting quoted sounding like a dumbass:

You should not enter a coffee shop for a coffee and a doughnut and come out unalived. That is diabolical,”

Really, unalived?  I’d ask, what are they, 13?  But it’s the daughter of a 75-year old, so presumably someone closer to my age than someone who probably actually thinks unalived is a real word.

Like the title of this post says, I can’t imagine something like this ever happening up in Canada, because Canadians are typically way more well-mannered and not as violent as their southern neighbors, and hopefully incidents like this doesn’t inhibit the expansion of Timmy’s in the US, because we’ve finally got remotely accessible locations in Georgia, and I hope to always be able to get iced capps when I really am in the mood for them.

Where has this stuff been all my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Chili oil crisp was always something I never gave much thought about; it’s not something I hadn’t ever seen before, after all, it’s almost always at the table whenever you go to an actual sit-down Chinese restaurant.  I’ve never really been compelled to try it before, but over the course of the last year or so, I’ve heard occasional remarks about people who love this particular brand of chili oil crisp, Lao Gan Ma, and how it is one of those condiments that goes with everything, almost like a Chinese version of Frank’s Red Hot or something.

I was at the Asian market a little while ago, and I saw an endcap display where Lao Gan Ma was on sale, and I figured ehh, why not, no time like the present to give it a whirl.  When I brought it home, I tasted it straight, and it was good, but I didn’t really see what all the fuss was all about.  Most people talked about how it went great on eggs, but I can’t exactly eat eggs straight, so that was out of the question, but I could imagine different things that it might go well with, but not many things that I was going to make any time soon.

I found it went okay with curry, but when the day is over, I preferred adding chipotles to my curry as my preferred heat additive, and although I liked the Lao Gan Ma, I knew I had yet to find the right thing to add it to, to really unlock its potential for my palette.

Recently, The Algorithm has been showing me content of all these people who were making these cucumber salads, touting their ease, and general low-cost, when combined with stuff like canned tuna, celery, dill, salt and pepper, with some people utilizing mayo, and others using combinations of cottage cheese and/or Greek yogurt.

Impressionable as I sometimes can be, I decided to give a flyer to one of these recipes, since they seemed a little bit on the healthier side, while being lower on the carbohydrate scale; and it was pretty good, but I felt that it was something that probably would taste great with some sort of hot sauce . . . or some chili oil crisp.

And it was in this union of a creamy cucumber tuna salad, and Lao Gan Ma chili oil crisp, I unlocked this mega combo, where the creamy base of the salad, tempers a little bit of the heat of the chili oil crisp, and they go together in a fantastic combination to where I’m crushing half the bowl of the salad in one sitting, and emptying out a third of my jar of chili oil crisp.

Sure, a hot sauce like Frank’s would probably be good with this cucumber tuna salad, but it wouldn’t give it the satisfying crunch that Lao Gan Ma crispy chilis do, and now I’m basically at a stage of my life where I’m wondering where the heck this stuff has been throughout it, and how excited my inner big back is at seemingly finding the key to unlocking the potential of chili oil crisp, and deliberating future foods that it could probably go great with now as well.

The poor Chick Fil-A recruiting class

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A long time ago, there was a Chick Fil-A that then-mythical gf and I went to pretty regularly.  There was a guy that managed the place, who we called Sam; whether that was actually his name or not is irrelevant at this point, but Sam was one of those guys that had an explosively bubbly personality, was always smiling, always happy, and clearly had an 11 on his attribute slider when it came to people skills.

One time, he saw us in the drive-thru line and addressed the two of us by name, and after we had left, we had one of those collective moments that both found it a little weird that he clearly learned, us, and that we probably come by too often, to where it’s gotten to this point.

All the same, as slightly uncomfortable as it felt to be learned by Sam, there was no mistaking the fact that he ran a really tight ship, and this particular location was always firing on all cylinders.  The line moved fast, orders were almost never inaccurate, and the place had to be among the leaders or the region in terms of profit and satisfaction.

Any time mythical wife and I come across any sort of business, whether it’s another Chick Fil-A or not, where the customer service and general quality of employee performance seems below par, we often remark about how this place could use a Sam.  He’s basically become the measuring stick of effective leadership, regardless of it it’s in the fast food space or not.

Anyway, I’ve made no secret of my general love of the Chick Fil-A app, and locations that utilize an app-only lane.  The app is one of the greatest apps in the history of mobile application development, and I love how it gives me access to the app-only lanes of certain CFA locations, because fewer things in the world tickles my fancy than checking in with the app, and then bypassing at least five cars, slowly ordering and waiting in the pleeb line, multiplied only by how fast I get my food and am on my way versus how many cars are still waiting in pleeb class.

One of the greatest days of my fat guy life was when the CFA location that my house frequents the most, underwent renovations in order to implement a dedicated app lane.  Sure, when they re-opened, there were some growing pains and some training needing to be done by the restaurant and to the idiot customers, but eventually we got to a point where it became business as usual; I could whiz into the app lane, check in, pass by 3-7 pleebs in the old people manual ordering line, and be on my merry way.

However, over the course of the last contemporary school year, it has been noticed how ineffective the local CFA has become.  Long waits, frequency of inaccuracies rising.  It didn’t matter if I were using the app or not, the kitchen would get backed up and overwhelmed from what seemed like fairly predictable and busy periods that should be relatively easy to anticipate.  The app lane did very little to change things, and the gleeful text messages I’d send mythical wife of how many cars I passed in the pleeb lane were often replaced by frustrated texts detailing how long I’ve been waiting, and how generally annoyed I was feeling from this experience.

The coup de grace was when I was coming to pick up some food from the CFA, and I noticed that although the drive-thru still began with two lanes, with one of them being solely for app users, prior to reaching the pickup point, the lanes forcibly merge.  And in some cases, in a twist of irony, by the sheer nature of zipper merges, occasional pleebs who ordered with sticks, nuts and pebbles get to jump in front of the savvier app users, and conversely, few things annoy me as much as that.

Naturally, when inane bullshit like this begins to go tits up, I often ponder, how?  I began to think about how the whole school year, performance has been relatively on the lower-tier of output, and I concluded with the notion that my local CFA just simply had, a bad recruiting class. 

Much like in the same vein of when a college has a poor recruiting class, resulting in poor performance throughout the season, and an eventual sense of wanting this to be over with so that they can possibly retool and rebuild for the following year.

I suppose the people in my community and I have been taking for granted the general strong yearly performance of our local CFA, seeing as how when it’s actually bad, it’s really noticeable, but it’s still disheartening that they seem to operate much like a college program, where if you’re bogged down with marginal talent, you’re stuck with it until they all graduate out, and hopefully a more talented class takes their places afterward.

But make no mistake, the problems at my local CFA definitely stem from the fact that they had a very poor recruiting class for the 25-26 season, that can’t handle the kitchen, which in turns taxes the runners, which in turn slows down the drive thru lines, which unfortunately results in the deactivation of the app-only line in order to drop the general speed to something that the kitchen is capable of handling.

All I’m saying is, if Sam were in charge of this CFA location, none of this bullshit would even be a part of the discussion.

Every business out there, regardless of if it’s a Chick Fil-A or not, could only benefit from having a Sam of their own.

Why do people like Twizzlers?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Honest question.  Mythical wife bought this huge fucking sack of them, and they’re sitting on the kitchen counter.  The kids want them every time they see them, and much like a lot of the junk food that mythical wife buys, she barely eats it, so either I eat more of it than I should, the kids eat more of it then they should, or it ultimately gets thrown out.

Needless to say, I’ve had like two ropes of the crap, and each time I take a bite, I ask myself, why do people like Twizzlers?  They’re basically barely edible plastic, hardly have any flavor, and I feel that they’re more effort to eat than they are to enjoy, as if anyone could actually enjoy these shitty things that feel like you’re biting into a candle, with about as much flavor.  I imagine that they’re like the human equivalent of Greenies treats for dogs, because they look like plastic, are minimally edible, and when they break down in your mouth, I imagine the effect is the same, where they passively scrape and inadvertently clean your teeth.

In all fairness, I’m talking about the traditional twists variants, because I’ve found that the pull ‘n peel Twizzlers are actually enjoyable and tasty, but as far as brand recognition goes, it’s all about the traditional twists.  And the question remains, why the fuck do people actually like these things?

As I said, the bag has been laying, mostly open, on my kitchen counter.  Usually, I try to be cognizant of any food that’s left out on the counter, because once everyone goes to bed at night, the cats in my house definitely like to get up onto the counters to snoop around and look for anything remotely edible.  And yet night after night, the Twizzlers remain completely untouched by the cats.  Just a day ago, an errant bag of cereal that was left on the counter fell victim to the fucking cats, and I found it on the ground the following morning, with it shredded open in the middle like it had been caught by velociraptors.

So the dumbass cats in my house won’t eat these shitty Twizzlers, but my wife argues with me that they’re remotely supposed to be good.  I do not understand how any people think these are remotely as good as to warrant their continued survival in the junk food space.

Make it make sense pls

Better Drivers. Doesn’t Matter. Papa Atlanta Roads.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: Papa Johns semi truck crashes, overturns on I-75, causes massive traffic jams

Not a whole lot to add to this.  It’s been a while since I wrote about a good old fashioned truck crash on the highways, but I’m disappointed to see that it wasn’t one of those catastrophes that ended with pizzas all over the place, scattered all over the highways, and all over the medians and shoulders.

Considering the fact that this happened right at the doorstep of Kennesaw State University, a budding commuter college in the Metro Atlanta area that has slowly been creeping upward over the last few years, probably buoyed by the gradual improvements and successes of their athletic program, there would’ve been an easy joke about how it was probably some broke boy college kids going all Fast & Furious on a pizza truck, hoping to score some free pizza, as if nobody would suspect the nearby college on whom could have done it.

No, I’m actually pretty familiar the location of this particular one, because I’ve had to drive north on I-75 for work related purposes a bunch of times, and there’s a specialist I’ve had to go to a few times in like Acworth, so I know the exact spot where this happened.

Although the lanes do merge up around here from a prior exit as well as being an access point for the toller-coaster Express lanes, everything is pretty straight, which makes it puzzling to how a semi can get into such a catastrophe where they end up overturned and halfway buried into the wall.  Then again, never underestimate the incompetence of the vast majority of people on the roads, because there’s no conditions where someone can’t somehow end up gravely injured or dead, in even the most seemingly safe road conditions.

But really, what spurred this post to fruition is that whenever I hear the name Papa Johns, I think about the photo and ensuing memes that basically murdered his career with the company that was named after him, where he was spotted blitzed drunk out of his mind at a basketball game, and hanging off of two college bros like he were Weekend at Bernie’s.  Even though this happened like an eon ago at this point, some people never forget, and it’s what always comes to mind whenever I think of the brand.

That said, as mentioned before, not a whole lot to add, not a whole lot else to write about this.  Wish there was some more of a catastrophic wreck where cargo was strewn about, but such was unfortunately not the case.

Suck it, Frogs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pasticceria Internazionale: Korea wins the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, defeating France

A long time ago, my dad told me that if you train a Korean in something, they are more than capable of becoming the best in the world at it.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t in such phrasing, but he basically did tell me that Koreans are basically good at everything they put their minds and hearts into, and such a notion was proven correct as Koreans won the Baking World Cup in France, defeating not just the French, but also Taiwan, whom placed third and second behind them.

Honestly, it really isn’t that much of a surprise, considering the general nature of Koreans is that they’re very detail oriented and more than competent when it comes to intricate processes like machinery, or baking.  And as far as my experiences in America as well as Korea are concerned, if you see a bakery with a name that’s remotely French, there’s a very high chance that it’s being operated by Koreans.  They’ve taken to French Baking like a fish to water, and all you have to do is watch any episode of Culinary Class Wars to see just how many Koreans are adept at French cuisine in general.

With the win, Korea joins the United States and Japan as the only countries to now have multiple Baking World Cup wins, since the whole competition was started 24 years ago.  It’s funny how it was started obviously by the French, and they’ve basically already been outclassed by everyone else in an arena that they basically invented.  Then again, the United States has only won one World Baseball Classic, and Team USA basketball now requires Herculean performances in order to stop getting pwned by the rest of the world in hoops.

Koreans can’t seem to win at anything on their home soil, except for the occasional League of Legends Worlds, and if the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie were to be held in Seoul, they would undoubtedly not place.  But I can kind of get it, as far as competition goes, I’ve personally always felt more at ease when I’m the one on the road, and not feeling any sort of hometown pressure.

Regardless, I’m tickled to even learn that something like the Baking World Cup was even a thing, but I never want to any time Koreans flex their dominance against the rest of the world in any way, shape or form.  Of course Korea are the best bakers in the world, even better than the Frogs that invented the arena.  It’s like that SNL skit where fake Celine Dion keeps hijacking other singers’ songs and proclaiming to be better than them at their own songs, except Korea dominating France very much happened.

Viral is mixing shit in a rotisserie chicken bag and making it look like vomit

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I mean I don’t know much more succinct I can be about what this post is about.  Perhaps because I like food so much, for whatever reason, the algorithm has seen fit to keep feeding me all these variants of these idiot influencers who are all trying the supposed viral Costco rotisserie chicken bag ‘hack,’ where they chop up a chicken and mix a whole lot of things inside the chicken’s bag itself and call it any form of a palatable meal.

The idea of some of the concoctions seem like they could be good, but the fact that a lot of these dumbasses are insistent and execute them within the confines of a plastic bag, there’s no avoiding that the end result of every single recipe and variant makes it look like people are vomiting into these bags and squirting sriracha and/or kewpie mayonnaise onto them and imbibing on them and overselling how good they are, as if they’re eating Five Guys for the very first time in their life.

Back in my day, doing what these kids are doing now and calling it viral, of mixing a bunch of shit in a bag and eating it straight from there, would be called along the lines of prison food, or walking tacos, with the general perception that comes along with names like those attached to them.  But because the internet continues to make people dumber than they were a day prior, we have a thousand variants of people trying to do this and pyramid piggybacking on a bad idea, for the sake of some cheap views.

The bottom line is that I haven’t seen a single version of this so-called viral rotisserie chicken bag trend that looks remotely appetizing.  Sure, I know taste and satisfaction is supremely more important than aesthetics, but there’s still a minimum viable appearance necessary to make the eater not believe that they’re eating vomit straight out of a bag.

I know I’m occasionally susceptible to wanting to try out a trend, but as far as the viral Costco rotisserie chicken bag ‘hack,’ yeah no, I think I’m good on not wanting to eat food that looks like it’s passed through a digestive track before ending back up inside a bag.