Tag: food

Comparing the White House to Waffle House is an insult to Waffle House

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Now I like Saturday Night Live.  No, I’m not going to go on some nostalgic tangent and name drop Mike Myers, Dana Carvey and Tim Meadows and shit, but I can say that I’ve watched a lot of SNL in my life.  I can’t say that I’ve watched that much of it within the last few years because it’s been long since I’ve cut the cord, and haven’t had the capabilities to watch network television in quite some time.

One would also have to be pretty much blind and deaf to the knowledge that throughout the last two years or so, SNL has been absolutely killing it with politico segments, primarily focusing around mocking the guy elected to presidency as well as key members of his administration.  As much as the liberal left bemoans to this day the result of the last election, frankly it could almost be said that nothing could have been better for SNL than what had actually occurred, due to the sheer volume of material now available as a result.

I’ll admit, I think Alec Baldwin’s impersonation is pretty funny, and I get a kick out of the faces he makes upon the completion of statements.  The fact that the elected guy himself addresses each slight and mocking skit on social media just adds to the ownage, and then the cycle repeats itself over and over again.

But taking a jab at Waffle House?  Aw hell naw, son.  That’s too far.

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Well, barbecue sauce is delicious

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Short story shorter: man loses his shit when Waffle House doesn’t have barbecue sauce, goes to jail over it

Oh, Waffle House, how I love thee.  No really, I love Waffle House.  I go at least once a month regardless of how healthy I decide to try to be for a week.  In fact, in the morning of the day that I’m writing this right now, I went to Waffle House.  I had a heaping mound of hash browns with chili and onions on it, and a side of sausage.  It was delicious.

But anyway, as much as I love Waffle House, there’s no mistaking that it’s a magnet for odd stories and interesting characters.  Some, not as savory as others, and in the case of this Macon Waffle House, unfortunately a volatile and very hostile customer, hell bent on getting some barbecue sauce.

Now I’ve been to Waffle Houses in at least five different states, and I can’t say that I’ve ever once seen barbecue sauce available at a single one of them.  It’s always ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper and Tabasco sauce, and sometimes there have been A1 and/or Heinz 57 and/or the occasional Waffle House-branded imitation steak sauce that’s almost like A1 mixed with Heinz 57. 

But never barbecue sauce.

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I want to enjoy food as much as Kasumi does, someday

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Going down the Netflix rabbit hole, after I finished watching Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, the immediate suggestion by the algorithm was a show called Samurai Gourmet.  Upon watching the preview; not like I had any choice, because Netflix forces previews upon you like James Franco’s alleged sexual aggression, I decided to give it a flyer, because I was sad that I had watched all of Midnight Diner and was wanting to get more of that peaceful, slice-of-life feeling that it had provided, and a show about a retired man leisurely seeking food to savor and enjoy seemed like it had some potential.

Now I don’t think it’s as good as Midnight Diner, but Samurai Gourmet has so far been pretty enjoyable as well.  Whereas Midnight Diner was more about a centralized location and the people that gravitated to and around it, Samurai Gourmet is conversely centered around a singular person, freely flowing to different locations.  However, it does manage to capture that light-hearted feeling and emotions of internal thought processes and the enjoyment of comfort foods in perfect circumstances.

I feel like the best analogy for the show is that it’s like Stephen King writing, when he was still in his literary prime.  He’d take something like his protagonist going into the kitchen and doing mundane things, and somehow bilk 5,000 words, mostly adjectives to describe every little activity, before the last two paragraphs in the chapter are loose ties to the inevitable aliens/demons/monsters/spiders that the story is supposed to opposed by.  Except in Samurai Gourmet, there is no supernatural villain to derail Castle Rock, just protagonist Kasumi’s own imagination of his inner samurai dealing with his fairly minor conflicts.

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I want to eat at the Midnight Diner

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A show I’ve been enjoying a lot lately has been Netflix’s Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories.  It’s apparent that I’m very favorable to slice of life types of shows, and at just ten episodes that aren’t even a full 30 minutes, it’s the perfect kind of show for me to watch an episode here and there, or watch several in a row, and walk away from the screen feeling moderately pleased with life.   There’s no really other way to describe it other than the fact that it’s a light show that puts me in a good mood while watching it.

There’s one particular episode that I enjoyed a lot, that revolved around the budding relationship between a Japanese physicist and a girl from Korea working in Tokyo, and how their shared love for fried rice omelets is the link that brings them together.  It deals with the taboo perspective of Korean-Japanese relationships, and how easy it is to criticize and pass judgment from the sidelines as opposed to those who are capable of seeing past them.  And all in like 25 minutes, which means the characters are introduced, a conflict is established, and then the episode winds down, giving me more time to do other things, which usually ends up watching another two episodes of Midnight Diner.

Anyway, aside from simply enjoying the show, I look at the Midnight Diner itself, as the kinds of places I love discovering and going to.  And I haven’t even been to Japan.  But anywhere, really, whether it’s in the United States or any other place in the world I’ve visited.  I love charming little eateries, where the cooks are masters of their small menus, and only hit home runs. 

However, when I do visit Tokyo one of these days, I hope like hell I’ll find a place like the Midnight Diner, and it would probably be the highlight of my trip if I actually did find one just like it.  I don’t stay up too late these days, but I’d be more than willing to capitalize on some jet lag and try to find a place open 12-7 am if were anything like the show’s place.

It’s a great show for those who like slice of life anthologies, or just want to watch something very quick, short and relaxing.  I know I’ll be disappointed when I finish the series, and have to go back to the drawing board to find something as simply enjoyable as Midnight Diner.

Instant Pot for the Greater Good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I joined a cult.

I purchased an Instant Pot.

A little while ago, I stumbled across this particular page, and I was immediately intrigued by the effective photography showing a French dip sandwich, and a hearty looking Italian soup.  As I read through the page, I discovered the existence of this seeming Jesus-level appliance known as an Instant Pot, that was a capable of pressure cooking a wide variety of delicious looking foods in fractions of the times they would normally take if cooked traditionally.

Whole chickens and pot roasts and corned beef in less than an hour?  Just throw shit into the pot, press a few buttons and wait like 15 minutes for the food to cook?  Color me interested.

Anyway, the saturation of Instant Pot on social media and the rest of the internet was no help at resisting the allure of possibly getting one, but the final straw snapped when I just so happened to be out and about bouncing around antique stores, and then I came across this one indy store and I found out that they had actual Instant Pots at reduced costs.

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Florida gets all the good shit

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Lakeland, Florida – a semi stalls on train tracks, and is decimated into two pieces when a CSX train plows into it, sending its cargo consisting of a variety of meats flying all over the place. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and a lot of people went home happy after scavenging the remains for free meat.

So obviously this isn’t a story of a tractor trailer overturning on the highway, nor did it happen in the state of Georgia, typical criteria in which I try to integrate these stories into the highway buffet.  But a train slicing a stalled semi full of meat into two pieces?? 

Yeah, that’s brog-worthy alright.

Talk about a chaotic story.  Sure, it sucks for those involved in the accident, from the truck driver to all persons on the train.  But thankfully nobody was hurt, which means the rest of the story is fair game for ironic humor and criticism.

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Now this is a tragic spill

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen in Georgia, so it can’t be the mother of food payload spills, but it still warrants a few words, just because of how tragic it is.  But a truck full of DiGiorno and Tombstone frozen pizzas tipping over and spilling its delicious cargo all over the highway?  That’s a god damn shame.

Seriously though, I’ve often waxed poetic about the sequence of trucks spilling on Georgia highways making some sort of mythical banquet, but just about every combination of things from Georgia’s list would pale in comparison to a gigantic, Cici’s Buffet-caliber buffet of frozen pizzas.

Because pizzas are among the world’s most perfect foods, encapsulating everything into a fairly compact and often well-combined entrée, and considering no utensils are necessary, once you get the pizzas, all you really need are occasional beverages.

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