jhlurie

Impressive start, Linda. Cool. But how does it taste? Is there any equivalent you can think of which more of us might have experience with?

They will think you are even weirder if you enthusiastically show them the Japanese TV commercials and exclaim how wonderful THOSE are. Japanese women singing in French? Huh? (requires Quicktime) also: other commercials (there's a total of about 7 or 8 of them up there now, but over time they seem to periodically add new ones and subtract ones no longer airing)

Don't forget that Oyster Sauce! Actually your sauce seems a bit more complex. Usually I've had it JUST with Oyster Sauce alone. Either that or just Oil and Garlic.

My biggest issue was with the ribs--which is especially surprising considering how much I loved the Blue Smoke ribs served at the Big Apple BBQ Block Party. But these? They were skimpy. GREAT, but skimpy. It might even be my fault, in part. Blue Smoke serves four kinds of ribs: Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis and Texas Beef Ribs. Normally the Rib platter contains the first, second and fourth of those. Three of the four of us eating had stuffed ourself silly on the K.C. variety at the BABBQBP, so I asked our server to substitute the Memphis Ribs in instead. It didn't occur to me till much later than I might have insisted they take out the meatiest ribs they served. That rib plate in Jason's picture, by the way is the ENTIRE sampler order. We were assured it was the equivalent to a whole rack, but does it really look like that from the photo? Pretty much everything else rocked, except Soba's over-frozen Key Lime Pie. Jason does seem to have missed a picture of our Collard Greens, but then again Greens never LOOK all that impressive.

Shrek M&M thread (click) ← I admit that I recall the Shrek M&Ms tasting distinctly different from normal M&Ms, but I'd pretty sure I'd have specifically identified (and would recall) a Dark Chocolate taste. Thinking back, when I said "richer" for the Shrek M&Ms I bet I meant "creamier"--as in maybe they used more cocoa butter and milkfat in the mix. Besides, the media reports for the Star Wars Dark Chocolate M&Ms seem to be indicating this is the first time they've used Dark Chocolate. The paragraph of the MSNBC article I linked to a few posts back says:

It seems to be a love/hate thing with very little in-between. I was witness to someone practically choking on it today, but I liked it a lot. It still has the general Diet soda rule though--the colder the better. Some things don't change. For those looking for this, here's a detail shot on the labeling:

The store we visited only HAD the small packs. Luckily it was a great sale (69 cents, reduced from I think... $1.39), since little packs are always a rip off. I didn't know that the Shrek M&Ms were Dark chocolate. Are you sure about that Jason? I actually really like these by the way. They are less sweet than milk chocolate M&Ms. They taste more like ACTUAL chocolate instead of just a pile of sugar. My favorite character of the many on those little packages? The Red M&M playing Darth Maul. Now I hated Darth Maul as a character in the movies, but Red M&M has the black face paint, so I can't resist it. Red M&M vs. Darth Maul Also... from the BACK of the package... here's Green--the only "female" M&M. I'm sure sure if this is supposed to be Leia or Padmé though.

Not with the horrid lemon substitute Coke currently uses, I hope.

The price range is cheap, er... affordable. The place is basically set up like a little cafe, but the prices are in the fast food range. This is one of those places where you might ask whether it's worth traveling for and the answer is not an easy one. On one hand, you are dealing with things that are just sandwiches. On the other hand, they are truly unique and incredible tasting sandwiches. It's like those "Road Food" places our friend Holly Moore always champions--it's a matter of perspective whether you will go out of your way for hamburgers or hotdogs if they are the superior examples. In fact, if we can push Holly here at some point, I'm sure he'd give it a nice high "grease stain" score (if you aren't familiar with his sytem, that won't make much sense I guess). I can't comment on those tomatoes, because I'm the type who kind of eats through them without really thinking about them, or takes them off. The way this little place can clean up is if all those huge-ass condos down by the river start calling up to them. The point is they have something which is completely unique. The ingedients are top notch. The combinations are... weird but wonderful. Who knew that potato sticks, corn and mayo mixed together was wonderful topping a hamburger? Add in some bacon, a fried egg and some mozarella chesese and you've got yourself a meal. The grilled fruit works well too.

Wish I'd thought of that! ← Trust me, Chris didn't think of it. Are Home Depot prices actually edging out all of the local places which used to do this kind of business? When I was a kid I remember seeing them in Home & Garden stores most often, although I suppose the occasional hardware store had them as well. And don't tell me the alternative these days is Lowe's. That's like saying Pepsi is a Coke alternative.

There's apparently also a "Peanut Butter Lovers" variety with the exact opposite proportions. One I've yet to try, but actually WANT to try because of TV commercials are the "Dark Chocolate M&M". Darth Vadar is selling them. I'm not kidding. Hey... here's one (of many) news stories on this. I chose this one because the huge M&M guy is dwarfing Vadar, and it makes it look doubly ridiculous.

The regular chocolate flavor really isn't all that good, in my opinion. I'm not sure who buys it.

Ah. I smell a test market. Okay. EDIT - actually maybe it's just a gradual rollout. This pretty much implies that. EDIT 2 - Silly me. We have a topic for this already in the Soft Drinks forum. Go take a look!

Wait a second. Diet Coke with Splenda? They haven't dared try that in the U.S. yet. All we get is that crappy C2 junk--which is even worse because it's still got other artificial sweeteners in it as well.

Here's something interesting I found on taquitos.net... Lasagna Chips! Also, some variants: Lasagna Tomato Basil and... Lasagna BBQ? Taquitos gives the "original" a bad rating, but the two variants good ones.

I think it's a real, provable phenomenon that people's judgment on food shopping goes out the window when they are hungry. It's kind of something we all instinctively learn, I guess, unless you are a person who has never faced EITHER a financial or weight crisis and had to cut back on one or both of those areas.

Two hours to race time, folks. Pre-race coverage starts on NBC at 5PM. Prop your feet up with a julep and tune in (all I know is that I want Steinbrenner's horse to lose... ) Here's an existing topic on race day eats, by the way, if you want to discuss your own home preparations or race day parties. Ironically, Marsha was the last person to post there. I suspect most of us are happy to celebrate vicariously though her, but the topic is there if you need it. We're also got a topic going for Mint Juleps, and I hope that some of the talk here can transition over there after this foodblog runs it's course.

This is a great picture, yet even it doesn't do justice to this Dosa. It was an interesting experience seeing the "spring vegetable" treatment with Indian food--the vegetable matter in it was much fresher and more vibrant than you'd see in most typical Indian food. I've had the Lamb Kati Rolls too, and they kick major ass. They're like perfect little hand-held lamb omelettes. You can get these without eggs, I understand, but I don't really see the point of that.

My opinion is that on the face of things a place like this might expect to receive comments like: "Well, it's a good place to go if you are heading to International Food Warehouse/Nat'l Wholesale Liquidators". The reality of the situation is that the food here is good enough that people should be saying: "Well, we might as well shop at International Food Warehouse/Nat'l Wholesale Liquidators after we eat at Indian Chef."

Those are okay, but there's a Chocolate/Caramel Decorer variation, which I think is FAR better.

This is for the sake of Derby-Pie®, and thus a case where a minor exception to the foodblogging timeline seems well... kind of in our best interests. Plus, it's not as if you haven't had plenty of other stuff to tell us about this week. Grrr. Some people have all the luck.

It's based in L.A.

I LOVE Steak 'n Shake, Marsha. My Dad lives in Missouri and it's a big deal there too. Also, those croutons are killing me. I have a jones for great croutons.

Time for us yanks to get punished: http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen/ The thing is... I'm not quite sure this will "fly" on FOX.

Interesting. Nobody has mentioned this eGullet classic. (it's multiple parts, but has links to the later ones) Admittedly Klink wasn't curing sausages, but I think it's a nice reference for anyone reading this topic.