jhlurie

Burger King was better in the 1970s. McDonalds has been better in every other decade. The whole "flame broiling" thing is a lie to cover the fact that its really coming out of a drawer and being rewarmed in a microwave, just like everywhere else. As fifi says, a Chick-Fil-A will win everytime. It's simply a deep fried Chicken Sandwich. Mmmm. At least comparitively. Click for pic of Chick (-Fil-A Sandwich)

Oh yea. That stuff is awesome. The liquid form is particularly fast-acting. Trust me, I've eaten Taco Bell at 4:00 AM in the middle of a cross-country road trip. Taco Bell? Oh Sam I'm so dissapointed in you! Burger King is near a line. Taco Bell crosses it, since it has been scientifically proven that you can't eat Taco Bell without contracting something.

"Sold out", dude. You did read the "sold out" part. Obviously Fowke is doing something right. To be honest I love Corned Beef too. But that Pastrami looks awesome.

This is a similar point to the one about the posible devaluation of the James Beard award. Somebody who we've been given every reason to believe is an "expert" in a certain area is giving advice which is leveraging that apparent expertise to sell us something unworthy. BK Santa Fe Crapwich = Rick Bayless = James Beard Award Winner = An implication that it is somehow an award worthy endevour

The "bacon quote" currently on the eG front page: The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Supplies us sausage, ham, and Bacon. Let others say his heart is big, I think it stupid of the Pig. Ogden Nash, 'The Pig'

William Burroughs is older than dirt. He can afford to sell out at 80 years old. Bayless still has some life left in him. Besides, its hardly the same thing. I actually had a serious point in there which seems to have been missed. Nobody is going to mistake William Burroughs for an expert on athletic shoes. So his "sell out", while perhaps distasteful to some, doesn't really mislead people. It's like Emeril selling toothpaste. Does anyone really think Emeril is an expert in oral hygiene? But Mr. Bayless is talking about, and misleading us about, his area of expertise.

It would be like The Rolling Stones saying that they'd like to jam with n'Sync.

You want an honest opinion? It's not the worst sandwich ever made by Burger King. Nor is it the best. Either way, its certainly VERY far from the best fast food sandwich. Any of several dozen other chains have better sandwiches which are not being pimped by a Celebrity Chef. But really thats all irrelevent. Even if it was the single best product made by Burger King, its not up to the standards you'd expect given the reputation of this endorser. Even removing the "politics" of Bayless' public positioning on certain issues, it says something when somebody who's won a James Beard Award tells you that you can go and spend three and a half bucks for something a pimply teenager glops out of plastic bins, and yet still have a worthwhile experience. It devalues the Beard Awards. It devalues the reputations of other Chefs who's endorsements of more serious endevours might be questioned going forward. It's like Ingmar Bergman making a commercial telling us how great a TV show "Friends" is. At least theoretically. Okay, maybe not Ingmar Bergman, but at least Mike Nichols.

It usually gets my lips before my tongue. And its less a 9V battery feel than it is somehow a kind of a combination of a slight numbness and a slight tingle at the same moment. And don't forget the fact that your water tastes funny for a few sips afterwards.

I suppose that would be true if "three Whole Foods locations" (Edgewater, Montclair, Ridgewood--which I believe is fairly new) fills that requirement. King's and Food Emporium have some moderately good stores, but nothing spectacular. There ARE more local gourmet markets than most areas (Jerry's, Cafaso's Fairway, Korean and/or Chinese and/or Italian and/or Hispanic Produce Markets up the wazoo, etc.) and tons of warehouse-type stores (BJ's, International Food Warehouse, etc.) but since the demand is ALSO much higher, I think Wegman's analysis is off. They might well learn this lesson in Wayne. Wayne is probably tied with Paramus, NJ as the busiest "shopping" town in the state. But a Wegman's there will probably do record business despite all of the competition. It may seem nuts to some Wegman's executive up in Rochester, NY, but people travel all the way from New York City to shop in places like Wayne or Paramus. Heck, some of the nuttier ones even travel to Princeton, apparently. Looking at their location map, Wegman's also seems to have taken a "bye" on the whole state of Maryland. There really must be something to the theory of them staying away anywhere with Whole Foods locations, since Maryland has seven of those (then again, Northern Virginia has like... six of the seven locations of WF in that state, and yet Wegman's has a store right there in Dulles, and another opening soon in Fairfax).

Read up-topic a bit cwyc. At least if you live in the U.S. (not a default assumption here on eGullet), they are illegal for import. If you DO find them, don't post where here, otherwise armed agents of the USDA and DOA will swoop down from black helicopters, repel down on teflon ropes and arrest you.

I'm pretty sure Rick bites. Oh... you mean THE SANDWICH? Dunno. Looked like it, without a visible swallow.

Thanks to our friends at Wegman's, some numbers for comparison: Salami Hormel, as I pointed out earlier, is by far the worst. 900mg for 2 ounces. This is the crap that's going to be in most mom and pop out of the way supermarkets, you know... right next to the Kraft brand cheese and the Wonder bread (okay, to be fair, two other types of Hormel are listed at 650mg per 2 ounce portion each). Remember that not everywhere has a Wegman's. In other words, you can't win. Just live with it.

BK single Cheeseburger = 790 mg sodium Orig. Whopper = 980 mg BK Orig. Original Chicken Sandwich = 1270 mg BK Fish Fillet = 840 mg BK Chicken Caesar Salad (w/o Dressing or Croutons) = 1040 mg KRAFT® Creamy Caesar Salad Dressing = 340 mg Croutons = 300 mg

Well, one teaspoon of salt is approx. 2,000 mg of sodium. I suppose we can roughly figure it out from there.

sorry, but not everyone has the time. you may be even more special than you think. Be nice kiddies. I can understand casting@philacast.com's position even while at the same time thinking it might be a crazy and unrealistic standard to adhere to. I've been in plenty of hick towns hick enough to not have decent fresh bread, salami other than by Hormel, and little or no cheese other than Velveeta or Polly-O. If I recall right, Steven Shaw claims he can find a Subway or Blimpie in almost any town in an emergency. I'm not even so sure of that.

but juicy. they do seem to taste like boiled beef. Sorry I misquoted you. Boiled beef and dishwater are the same thing to me. Oh dear. That was Jon, wasn't it? My apologies, tommy. Can I not wake up this morning? tommy, I take back my apology. Jon, sorry I confused you with tommy. What's this about dishwater? That's a taste. JackHole Burgers don't even have that. Except maybe for the five trillion possible toppings. BTW: the boiled beef comment was tommy's. I wouldn't have characterized boiled beef as having an identifiable taste either. So what's the deal with this Corner Bistro place? Having never had it, I have no idea what's going on here.

i can tell you right now that McHale's is pretty seedy. Heh. And their burgers are too. Have fun at NY Burger Club. I don't think I can make this first one, but may shoot for a future one. Of course on this side of the Hudson, Burger Club is pretty easy. We go to White Manna every time. Someone was spotted outside of a Jackson Hole once, but we pelted him with Burger buns.

Steven, did you order it extra fatty? You know the guys there (particularly the old Jewish cutter) will go from extra lean to extra fatty by request. Of course, the Jewish guy immediately bonds with you if you ask for X-Fatty.

Well with respect Ruth, flavored Jello was really invented as a marketing mechanism to expand the business of a company which only had one product (see my post a few pages back, and Tolliver's similar one last page). You can turn your argument around the other way--the American sweet tooth may be a RESULT of the marketing which vaulted Jello and Hershey's and other products of that type into the limelight at one point in history. That's not saying that Jello with fruit can't be good. It can be. But its defintely still a uniquely American thing--a "food" invented purely as a by-product of a marketing campaign (actually these days the Japanese do that kind of thing too, right?)

A better example than Ikea is Target. Target experimented and opened a Bergen County store (in fact, screwing up BIG TIME because they didn't do their research and didn't realize they weren't allowed to be open on Sundays--they tried to open on a Sunday and the county sheriff showed up and shut them down). Target, I think, found something interesting--they started getting people coming from NYC. And apparently, despite being the first Target in the entire U.S. not open 7 days a week, the Bergen store did so well financially that they've opened up another one nearby within a year. Bergen = Big Rents/Big Risk/Big Rewards. Westchester would seem to be a prime candidate for Wegman's too. Rockland County might be a daring choice... then again the rents are really cheap there and there's tons of space.

Heh.

Thats because you've never had decent Chinese food in England. Ask Andy Lynes about it, he never had it either until he came to the states and I showed him what it is SUPPOSED to taste like. But even here you have to know where to go and you have to live in New York or San Francisco or Toronto. Naturally some of the best chinese seafood dishes in the world are to be found in Hong Kong or Singapore. I've never been, but from what I've seen on TV and from personal accounts from others, it has to be amazing. Go do a stage there sometime. Since I was along for Andy's introduction to decent chinese... I was going to give almost the same answer word for word. And frankly, the place we took him to was a bit under par that day and it STILL blew him away compared to what he'd had in Europe. Similarly, I've got to think that most Europeans don't REALLY "get" Mexican food.

New: They are actually pretty good. I'd been wondering when they'd get around to a Cinnamon flavor (most of the Listerine clones have had one for a long time).

Geez. Did a search for all topics on eG with "Salt" in the topic title and boy have we pounded the topic. But Michael's proved there's always something new under the sun, 'cause I don't see anything on Japanese salts at all. By the way... Welcome to Shio Town! I'm a little confused about the word "shio" though, it appears to mean both "salt" and/or "rapid current in the sea". Is there some different emphasis or is it really the same word? This blogster talks about his attempts to find Green Tea Salt--shio macha. Turns out it simply Green Tea powder mixed with ordinary salt. So I guess sometimes these things turn out to be pretty, er... obvious.