Tag: food

Judging a book by its title

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to Chinese food, I’m not particularly picky.  I mean, let’s be honest here, Chinese food in America is about as American as McDonald’s is, so going to Royal China in Atlanta isn’t going to be terribly different from Lucky Golden Buddha in Seattle or China King 3 in Oklahoma.  Furthermore, I usually favor my Chinese food either delivered to my house so I can be lazy, or going to a buffet where I can stuff my face like a miserable fat fuck and regret it terribly later on in the day.  There’s almost no appeal at all when it comes to going to a Chinese restaurant where the food is not unlimited.

Until I discovered the existence of this place.  Where the name of the restaurant alone is enough to elicit an opinion of “no fucking way,” and eventually “I want to try this place out if they’re so audacious to have such an iconic name that triggers so much nostalgia.”

I mean seriously, when you’re going to name your restaurant Double Dragon, you have to know you’re going to be putting a bullseye on yourself from snarky gamers that are 30-years old and older at this point.  You also have to know that you’re seriously not trying hard to hide the fact that you’re seriously infringing on some copyrights, from the name itself, to the logo they’re using, but then again, it’s hard to really nail down who owns the rights to the franchise these days; so maybe there’s no concerns that Technos or Atlus or whomever develops and publishes the game is going to bother coming after them.

Seriously, the logo could be slapped onto an NES cart and look like a legit edition to the series, it’s so blatantly based on the video game franchise.  The dragons are even the fucking colors of Billy and Jimmy. 

Regardless, a Chinese restaurant in Atlanta named Double Dragon.  I think that might be kind of racist, but the game is a Japanese development featuring white guys named Lee, and dragons are so very prominent in Chinese culture, so it too is hard to really nail down.  But I am most definitely piqued, and it’s now on my list of places that I would like to try.  If anything at all, this is kind of the closest thing I might ever see to restaurants named after video games, like I often hope to find an Indian restaurant called Yoga Fire.

Unfortunate demise of a cultural icon

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember telling any of my friends from out of town whoever came to visit Atlanta that we would have to go to Gladys Knight’s Chicken & Waffles.  Seldom did anyone disagree, because regardless of how they felt about fried chicken or waffles separately, nobody could deny that there was some bit of intrigue about having them put on the same plate and served simultaneously.  It didn’t hurt that the food itself was decent, and the location was pretty central to the city, making it easier to do anything else afterward.

Throughout more recent years however, myself along with many other kind of stopped going to Gladys Knight’s.  Maybe it was too touristy, maybe being featured on Man v. Food and other travel shows made the place too mainstream and too avoidable for hipsters like me.  Not to mention the idea of chicken and waffles has been borrowed by so many other restaurants throughout the city, many of which have found ways to make it better than the originals.

Regardless, it’s still to hear about a culinary trailblazer like Gladys Knight’s restaurant getting shuttered and basically condemned now.  Especially, in the manner in which all this transpired, which is long story short, Gladys Knight’s shithead son using the family restaurant as a drug front, getting busted several times and murdering the business in a slow agonizing death.

Seriously, it’s bad enough that Atlanta lost an iconic restaurant that, but it’s sadder to hear that it basically ruined a family relationship between mother and son because the son is greedy, selfish and an asshole, and mom just wanting to distance herself away from his bullshit.

No, Gladys Knight’s wasn’t the best chicken and waffles in town, but they were amongst the first to bring the cult-like combination to the city in the first place.  Furthermore, they were in a location often times mired in political strife and kind of a key point of contention for the future of the city.  Had the Peachtree/Pine area ever gotten back on their feet and improved, Gladys Knight’s was basically at the center of it, but instead, they’re not just another boarded up storefront in an area that’s already plagued with ghetto and failure, and not even the Empress of Soul herself could withstand the hood.

It doesn’t matter who wins the most, it’s who wins last

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because there’s a wrestling analogy for everything: Five Guys defeats In-N-Out Burger as the greatest burger joint all-time now and forever irrefutably

I’d like to start off and say that I am a fan of In-N-Out Burger.  Their burgers are definitely tasty, and I will seldom turn down the opportunity to go to one, whenever I go to a city where In-N-Out is available.  But when the day is over, my allegiance is with Five Guys.  Not just because of our shared Virginia roots and the positive association of basically growing up with the company when they were still just five dinky restaurants scattered across NOVA where you could shuck peanut shells on the ground while you waited for our order.

No, when the day is over, I honestly believe that Five Guys is the better hamburger (and fries) than In-N-Out.  And it’s about fucking time that the rest of the country broke out of their antiquated hipster anti-establishment damn-the-man mentality In-N-Out is better brainwashing and came to the same realization.

Five Guys never fails to satisfy a hearty meal; I always finish my In-N-Out #1 with a feeling of should I get something else no don’t be a greedy fat fuck, and I leave with this unfulfilled satisfaction in the pit of my stomach.  Five Guys never fails to fill that pit, regardless if I go with a fat double-patty, or feel self-conscious and order a single.

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APORKALYPSE NOT

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Surprise of the century, Hardee’s Aporkalypse biscuit was hardly the culinary miracle that fast food marketing attempts to make it sound like it is.  I mean, it’s not like I was expecting the greatest breakfast menu item in history, but it’s almost meme-worthy just how much this fell into the category of marketing versus reality.

Eating satisfaction-wise, it’s actually decent.  Sure, they ignored my request to put no egg on it, but since Hardee’s uses a washcloth folded into fourths and calls it an egg, it’s easy enough to remove without fear of any embryo remnants wrecking my digestive system for the afternoon.  But combining bacon, ham and sausage and drowning them in two cheeses is pretty self-explanatory when it comes to satiating a fat guy’s craving for a breakfast biscuit.

I think the biggest fallacy of Hardee’s is that they market something called the Aporkalypse, but completely fail to include all the porks that the restaurant offers.  Because adjacent to the sign on the window that boasts the Aporkalypse, there’s also a giant sign for this pork chop and gravy biscuit that they offer.  Yet the Aporkalypse boasts all this pork but completely fails to offer up a prevalently marketed pork!

Fat guy problems, yes I know.

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APORKALYPSE NOW

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Last weekend, I drove past a Hardee’s in South Carolina, and I saw on a fairly nondescript roadside sign saying “APORKALYPSE IS HERE.”  The sign was pointing at a Hardee’s, but the name “aporkalypse” definitely caught my attention.

Was this a rogue franchise making up an item?  Or was this something on a broader-scale release?  It didn’t matter what, I couldn’t stop repeating the word in my head, and I felt that I had to know.

Man, it’s hard to imagine the times in our lives when we all didn’t have smartphones and mobile internet, and couldn’t acquire information at the drop of a hat, wherever we were.  Thankfully being out in the sticks of South Carolina wasn’t enough to choke out mobile data and I was able to Google what aporkalypse was, and now I know what I’m going to have for breakfast over this weekend.

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Well, that didn’t take long

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Color me surprised: The Atlanta Braves have decided to renege on their draconian policy to disallow outside food from hallowed ScumTrust Great White Flight Park

I actually am surprised by this.  Usually when a baseball team does something that can easily be perceived as unpopular by the fans, they usually inevitably double-down on their decision and address the media with an as-of-matter-of-fact tone that declares that the unpopular decision is what’s best for the long-term, and that ultimately baseball is a business and choices like these are made that are best for business.

I would’ve expected that the Braves would have listened to the initial outcry of unhappy fans, weathered the storm, and then had a stuffy press release that dictated that they understand that people are unhappy with the decision to ban outside food, but that proceeds from concessions and the take from all adjacent The Battery businesses would inevitably be the coffers in which the team could use on free agents, despite the fact that the Braves are amongst the cheapest teams in the world and rarely ever are willing to overpay for a free agent unless it’s something completely haphazard like Dan Uggla or B.J. Upton.

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Surprise of the century

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Shocker: ScumTrust Park, the new home of the Atlanta Braves of Cobb County, has abolished on of Turner Field’s most popular policies – the ability to bring in outside food

This is about as surprising as finding out water is wet and fire is hot.  Anyone who thought for a second that one of Turner Field’s most popular policies would carry over into the new ballpark was delusional.

Of course ScumTrust Park isn’t going to allow people to bring in their own food; with the park smack dab in the middle of The Battery, the lame name used to describe the epicenter of shops, restaurants and other tourist crap that will surround Great White Flight Park, naturally they’re going to do everything to dissuade people from bringing their own food and instead spending money on overpriced homogenized pretentious crap around the park in order to eat instead.

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