Why Did I Eat This? Arby's Smoke Mountain Sandwich

It's sad and lonely at the top of Smoke Mountain

Before Philly Voice scoops me with their column that is, quite frankly, A DIRECT RIPOFF* of “Why Did I Eat This?” (I see you, Brian Bierman), I figured I’d file a recent trip to Arby’s, my first since a cousin’s wedding in Upstate NY over two years ago.

Unlike most of the garbage places where I poorly invest my daily calorie allotment, there isn’t a love/hate thing with Arby’s. Other than that one time me and Chris Kirsling smoked a bunch of weed (sorry, mom) and I single-handedly took down an entire 5 for $5 deal (that’s five regular roast beef sandwiches for five bucks), I’ve never walked out of there thinking, “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

You know where I'm headed with this. One by one, my favorite fast food joints are starting to let me down. For Arby’s, the disappointment came in the form of their latest offering, the Smokehouse Sandwiches.

I hadn’t even seen the commercials for these. I just happened upon an Arby’s on the way home from a project meeting**. When I walked in, the cardboard cutouts and giant photos got the best of me. Color me curious (and stupid), but the polish on these turds was just too much. On offer was pork belly (yes, pork belly at Arby’s), shaved brisket, and smoked turkey, each served on a glistening roll with onion strings, smoked cheddar, and an oil slick combination of mayo and BBQ sauce. Worse yet (or perhaps better?), you could get something called a Smoke Mountain, which was a combination of all three “meats” on one sandwich.

The Smoke Mountain IRL

So, rather than go quietly into the day with a Beef ‘n’ Cheddar, I put my head into the marketing lion’s mouth and made my bid for the Smoke Mountain summit.

And the view from the top was terrible.

I probably should have just gotten the pork belly sandwich. The shaved brisket was dry and the turkey was an afterthought. I was really in it for the pork belly, but judging by the few overcooked chunks that were intermingled with the other meats, it would have been just as disappointing on its own. The “Smoky Q Sauce” had a chemical aftertaste, and the crispy onion strings were soggy at best.

As mountaineers will tell you, “Getting to the top is easy. Finding your way down is the hard part.” My descent down Smoke Mountain was all headaches and stomach pain. I found solace in the curly fries, but little else.

I’m not mad at Arby’s, however. When your research tells you that things like pork belly are cool and sales are flat because you’re getting crushed by an onslaught of new and improved fast casual joints owned by fancy chefs and their stockholders, finding the next big thing to ruin is all in a day’s work.

I shall return to Arby’s, but I’ll stick to their standard offerings from now on. Buen provecho.

*To their credit, I don't post all that often these days

**This is a damn lie. I actually drove past the Arby's and doubled back because I couldn't stop thinking about it like that Simpsons episode where Homer goes to Clown College.

Why Did I Eat This? Burger King's Mac 'n' Cheetos

Down with the King

I live an inevitable food truth: If it's 50% Cheetos and 50% macaroni and cheese, there's a 100% chance I'll eat it. Enter Burger King's Mac n' Cheetos, my self-fulfilling prophecy of sadness and sodium.

First came the sponsored post. Then, a straightforward #MACnCHEETOS hashtag. Finally, I'm making actual phone calls to BK locations in and around Philadelphia* to find out whether any of them are holding. Marketing really does work (at least on my own feeble mind).

And so there I was on a Friday evening, racing toward the local Burger King with my son in tow, who also happened to be stoked to eat a few neon orange mozzarella sticks (this makes me proud beyond belief). Rather than go full meal, we ordered nothing but the Mac n' Cheetos, lest we pollute our palates with flame broil.

$2.49 plus tax gets you five warm cheese puffs fresh out of the microwave. While we waited for them to cool, we scrolled through Snapchat geofilters until we got to the site/product specific "YASS CHEEEESE!"overlay (the marketing onslaught is worse than that time in Game of Thrones when all the dudes from Ramsay Bolton's army surrounded Jon Snow's army and then did that badass thing where they slowly closed their circle of spears whilst hiding behind shields), then we dug in.

Note the absence of Cheetos powder on the napkin

The outer shell, according to the BK product website, is covered with crispy Cheetos flavor. I didn't realize you could "cover" something with flavor, but I am neither a scientist nor a copywriter. Regardless of how it's accomplished, the consumer is rewarded with not having to deal with the dreaded Cheetofinger**. The innards were nice and creamy (like that one weird bite of a fried soft shell crab but without the briney poop taste), and the overall experience was a success in that I wanted to eat at least three or four orders. Seriously, if these were passed h'ors doeuvres (and they probably should be), I'd stand by the kitchen door and obliterate the tray before they made their way out to the crowd. I'm probably in the minority by saying this, but they might even have a slight edge over Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Taco.

And in case you're wondering, the answer is yes, I ordered a Whopper meal following the taste test. Please feel free to judge me. Buen provecho.


*I actually only made one phone call.
*An all-time favorite "Would You Rather?" of mine is, "Permanent Cheetos residue on your fingers? Or always (even in blistering July heat) having to wear a black suede jacket with fringe?". 

Why Did I Eat This? Buffalo Wild Wings

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. And a Red Robin. And a Buffalo Wild Wings. And some self-service frozen yogurt shop that will be closed in six to nine months. And a PetValu.

But most importantly, a Buffalo Wild Wings, or B Dubs, as it is lazily shortened (because fuck syllables). For some, this is much more of a paradise than the empty field full of snakes and broken bottles (and at one time, deer probably, who are now displaced and confused and inevitably roadkill) it replaced. For me, it was a step just below adequate until the diarrhea kicked in later that evening and lasted most of the day Sunday and I contemplated arson. I don't understand how we as humans choose convenience over intestinal discomfort more often than not. I suppose it's easy to choose the path of excess when it's paved with five thousand times the recommended daily allowance of sodium. Wash it all down with a beer to forget that you're in the suburbs, then yes, it is paradise; a temporary vacation where you're given a "Guest Experience Captain" who will bring you unlimited samples of B Dubs' signature sauces and/or anything on draft (may I please have 100 samples of Miller Lite?).

The disappointing truth is that while you're dying to go there (whether ironically or not), the reason you want do is because of their endless commercials and the fact that it's more socially acceptable than Hooters. Aside from the glut of TVs in the place, it's no different than any other chain.

At least that was my experience. Our server was bummed that we only ordered a sampler platter and a snack size order of bone-in wings (plus two kids' meals), which were undersauced and just a touch past cooked. Raw chicken texture isn't my favorite. The boneless wings that were included in the platter were all bread and also devoid of sauce. The nachos were soggy, topped with mealy tomatoes and a congealed off-yellow queso. The mozzarella sticks held up, but you've got much bigger problems if you're fucking up mozzarella sticks.

Although I wasn't happy paying $60 for 48 hours' worth of intestinal discomfort, there's a 100% chance I'll go again because I hate myself. Plus, I didn't get my nifty cardboard hat this time, so they owe me that (I may also try out the unlimited beer sample scheme). If you can avoid being swayed by their marketing and that stupid winged buffalo logo, you're a better person than I. If not, stick to mozzarella sticks if you get suckered into going. Buen provecho.

Paying the Troll Toll: Andrew Zimmern

Celebrity is fucked. Even more fucked are the expectations of a celebrity's fan base. Of course you can't be all things to all people, but at a minimum, you should be allowed an opinion. Heck, your opinion is what got you in front of the camera in the first place, right? I'm specifically talking about Andrew Zimmern, who replaced his appetite for destruction with an appetite for increasingly strange foodstuffs and became a household name along the way. It's really hard not to like the guy, or at least his media persona. Follow him on Instagram and you'll see that despite enjoying opportunities that many of us won't, he's a humble ass dude and he's truly grateful for his lot in life.

Unfortunately, here's what else you'll see, especially when he uses his personal feed (yes, he's the one posting to Instagram (I think)) for things other than travel and food: his liberal aka tolerant leanings incite a vomitous stream of hatred, whether it's his position on addiction, gay marriage, or most recently, Donald Trump.

It's nothing out of the ordinary in a place where we can all hide in a digital stream of ones and zeroes, but for someone like Zimmern who just seems like a genuinely happy guy who wants other people to be just as happy, it's a shame that we as humans are terrible piles of garbage. Buen provecho.

Why Did I Eat This? Taco Bell's Quesalupa

The gold wrapper's a nice touch, at least.

They said it was going to be bigger than man buns, hoverboards, and drones, but here's something to chew on: man buns, hoverboards, and drones don't really exist outside major metropolitan areas. Even with Amazon allowing the world access to anything and everything whenever we'd like it (through the use of what is essentially slave labor), most of our country 'tis of thee could give a shit about newfangled harstyles and methods of transportation (I'm totally speculating here).

So it's fitting that Taco Bell's Quesalupa has fallen flat on its deep fried face (again, speculating here. I live under a rock). I'm all for the innovation. Add more fat in the form of melted cheese to something that already rots your insides in the name of deliciousness. That's a fast food slam dunk. The trouble with cheese, however, is that its melted state is fleeting, especially when subject to below freezing temperatures and a quick stop into church to get some ashes in an attempt to be more Catholic even though you've got a sack of Taco Bell "goodies" tucked under your right arm so you can make the sign of the cross before having dirt smeared all over your face (which actually didn't happen because there was a whole mass to get through before you could get ashes and I was too hungry to wait).

This is what happened to me. I had to try the Quesalupa, but I also had errands to run. By the time I got back to my office, the cheese congealed, so when I ripped it apart, that cool thing where strings of melted cheese hang onto each other until finally yielding to the tension of my weak arms separating their gooey union was non-existent. Instead, the shell crumbled and the cheese tore apart like chicken skin separating from chicken flesh, and you could wring the fryer grease out of the whole assembly. This cheesy surprise that was supposed to be all the rage failed in spectacular fashion. The claim of pepper jack cheese inside the shell was also a lie. No flecks of diced peppers that I could see, and certainly no spice. At $3.99 for the chicken version, you're better off sticking with old faithful, the Cheesy Gordita Crunch (with a Dorito shell). Buen provecho.

On Dining Out and Splitting the Check

Photo: Google image search with an assist from my shitty photoshop skills

Eater, ever my muse, just ran a little blurb on a fake app called "Equipay," which won a comedy hackathon for its ability to "split the cost of a meal in accordance with gender and racial income inequalities." The app, while hilarious, gave me a feeling similar to what would happen if the dude in the picture above came to life and ran his nails across the entire length of that chalkboard.

I'm all for equality, but when it comes to dining out with friends (or anyone, for that matter), as soon as that padded leather folder hits the table, the equation should be:

Individual Contribution = (Total / Number of Diners) + tip

And it should be done without hesitation. Alternatively (as pointed out by a few readers), one person can pick up the whole thing and take a pass the next go-around. The equation should never involve pulling out calculators to determine how much one owes for their half of the one loaded potato skin they ate from the appetizer sampler platter plus the harvest salad with chicken and strawberries plus the bite they had of Steve's burger minus the bite of grilled chicken they gave to Rob.

I understand that money may be tight, or you may not drink, or animal proteins aren't your thing even though you showed up in a leather jacket. But if you're out to have a good time, why ruin it with math? Not to mention the server who has to deal with your bullshit accounting.

Here's how I think of it. It's all about game theory. You approach the situation knowing you're going to split the check evenly, so you do one of two things. Keep the bill at a minimum by not drinking booze and ordering cheap entrees, or maximize your bounty by ordering expensive shit knowing that your portion will be supplemented by your fellow diners. Or, you could not be a dick and just eat and drink like a regular human and not worry about what's happening around the table. And if you happen to feel guilty because you ordered the 96oz. bone-in ribeye topped with a small fishing vessel's worth of lobster meat, then take it upon yourself to offer to pay a smidge more.

But at the end of the day, just split the fucking check evenly. Please. It'll make your friends hate you less and want to dine out with you more often. Buen provecho.

We Have Reached Peak "Overhead Time-Lapse Recipe Video"

Take a look at the troll talent of "march_of_the_pigs" above.

Okay okay okay we need to pump the brakes on this whole time-lapse cooking thing. Last night on Instagram, 7-Eleven used the gimmick for what has to be the stupidest recipe I've seen since Rachael Ray's "late night bacon." Using the hashtag #hacksonsnacks, the bodiless arms disassemble everything from a Big Bite hot dog to a taquito and...

Wait a second. You're buying the prepared food just to take it home and unprepare it?

Let me go ahead and stereotype here because I'm an ignorant jerk. I assume that if you're stopping into a 7-Eleven for food, either the meth's wearing off, the weed's kicking in, or you're me. You're not doing so to repurpose their hot dog roller options for gameday snacks. 

Think about it. Chances are that most of the stuff has been sitting on that encased meat treadmill for at least three hours, and even if it hasn't, it still looks as old and shriveled as, well, I'm not gonna go there. And even if you live next door, you still have to wait for the "food" to cool down before slicing it up and topping it with cubes of cheese (because melting cheese is an integral part of every one of these goddamn time-lapse videos). Does 7-Eleven really believe that this stuff is stable enough to reheat? It's barely edible to begin with. 

I understand the need to be creative* in order to move products, but #hacksonsnacks is an insult to the Superbowl snack table. For shame, Sevs.

*Use words like "squad," phrases like "yo frands," and other peoples' ideas like time lapse videos.

A Stupid List About Hangover Food

I got blotto last night and since I'm old as shit I'll be paying for it until Sunday, during which time I'll consume at least triple the amount of calories I average on a daily basis. We've all been there (and we all have yet to learn), so the next time you spend the night alternating between Fireball and Miller Lite for 6 hours, here's a handy list of food to shove in your face the morning after. It probably won't make you feel better, but it's worth a shot.

1. Menudo (or Posole): I blame my dad for a lot of things, but I have to give him credit for taking me to hole-in-the-wall places at a very young age. One of them, Taqueria Piedras Negras in Salt Lake, had menudo on Sundays. Pops knew exactly why. "It's a hangover cure," he said (I didn't really know what a hangover was, or how often I would be getting them later in life). Then he proceeded to tell me that the gelatinous honey combs I was eating used to be a cow's stomach. Then he dumped a shitload of onions and cilantro in my bowl and gave it a generous squeeze of lime. Fuck, I could really go for some menudo right about now.

2. Sausage, Egg, and Cheese croissant from Dunkin' Donuts: Pair it with an iced coffee that's more cream and sugar than actual coffee. If you're feeling especially shitty, order two, because they're kind of small.

3. Spam Musubi: If you have an aversion to Spam, you're dumb. Spam is goddamn delicious, and if you fry it up and glaze it with what is essentially teriyaki sauce, it's even more delicious. Put it on top of a sushi rice brick and wrap it up with nori and you've got a near perfect food.

4. Ultimate Meat & Cheese Breakfast Burrito from Sonic: If you're lucky enough to have a Sonic nearby, this has all of the breakfast meats, a generous ladle of cheese sauce, and TATER TOTS.

5. Five Guys: Put every single topping on their double cheeseburger, douse a giant order of fries with malt vinegar, and don't be shy with the free soda refills.

Alternatively, you can just start drinking again. It's 9am somewhere. Buen provecho.

Why Did I Eat This? Lance BOLD Crackers

The latest in an effort to blanket the entire world in buffalo wing sauce (and then top it with bacon), Lance BOLDS cracker sandwiches grab their nerdier counterparts by their day-glo orange shoulders and kick them square in their Toast-Chee nuts. Remember the Bonestorm episode of the Simpsons? That was me at the grocery store yesterday. I told my entire family to "Buy me Lance BOLDS crackers or go to hell!"*

Fast forward to 10am this morning, when I'm ready to make snacktime EXTREME!  The spokesbro for Lance BOLDS is Nyjah Huston, a 20-year old skateboarder who's had a skateboard under his feet from the time he could walk. Armed with that knowledge, I'm expecting to be able to switch kickflip at least 10 stairs after my first cracker.**

I started with Buffalo Wing Blue Cheese, which have the same orange hue as Lance's Toast-Chee variety. I expected a pronounced artificial flavor, but instead got a mouthful of heat and an excellent rendition of blue cheese flavor. These were the best approximation of buffalo flavor I've had since Herr's Buffalo Blue Cheese Curls.

With my mouth on fire and expectations riding high, I moved on to the Bacon Cheddar flavor. What should have been another roundhouse kick to the face turned out to be a disappointingly bland and crumbly cracker. I should have been on high alert after noticing that the "bacon" crumbles studded into the cracker itself resembled a bunch of scabs, which is probably what happens after you assume that you'll be good at skateboarding after eating these cracker sandwiches.

Ew, there's scabs on my crackers.

There's a third flavor, Pizza (yes, just plain old pizza), but fuck that shit. I guess one out of three ain't bad, especially since the Buffalo Wing Blue Cheese (BWBC) flavor was so damn good. Stay tuned for an update on how much better I am at skateboarding after eating these. Buen provecho.

*Actual Interaction: Me putting two boxes of crackers in the shopping cart and then moving on to the coffee aisle.

**Ed. Note: Lance BOLDS makes no guarantee about improving ability to skateboard.

Philly Burger Brawl 2015: Can You Eat 53 Burgers in 3 Hours?

Everybody's pissed off at Game of Thrones and I made this image over a year ago, but sometimes you need a lede and you're at work (and you're a lazy excuse for a writer).

Anyhoo, in less than a month (June 14th, from 3pm-6pm, to be exact), the 5th annual Philly Burger Brawl will descend upon Xfinity Live!, bringing with it 53 contenders vying for a really cool trophy and bragging rights. For you, this means that for $35, you can subject yourself to an eating challenge that carries its own bragging rights. And, if you can get through all 53, it'll only cost you $0.66 per burger (you can also pay the VIP rate of $100, which gets you started an hour earlier than us common folk)! Sadly, I'll be on my way to the shore, but this is definitely something you should check out if you're in Philly for the weekend. Buen provecho.

Why Did I Eat This? A Cronut for the Rest of Us

Back in May of 2013, the world lost its shit over the Cronut, a pastry likened to a croissant-donut hybrid created by Dominique Ansel in New York City. Lacking both the time and the patience, I didn't bother to go out of my way to see whether or not it was worth waiting in a line of Shake Shack proportions. Hell, I didn't even try any of the clones that popped up locally. To be honest, I just wasn't that interested, and I prefer to keep my donuts and croissants separate, much like my quesadillas and burritos.

Fast forward to now. Ansel has released a cookbook so we can all fuck up his recipes at home, and Dunkin' Donuts has finally reverse engineered a way to bring shelf-stable Cronuts to the masses. Since the word "cronut" is trademarked (shoulda, coulda, woulda, "Flaming Moe"), Dunkin' is simply calling them "Croissant Donuts," and retailing them for $2.49. They come in their own nifty little box instead of being haphazardly thrown into a brown paper bag (cute touch), and while they resemble the iconic pastry, they aren't that different than Dunkin's regular glazed donut. The butter flavor tastes artificial, the layers of pastry dough aren't flaky, and the shellac of milk and confectioners' sugar slurry weighs the whole thing down. Simply put, it tastes like diabetes with a heart disease filling.

At some point in the future (provided we're not all dead because the world is horrible and full of horrible people), I hope to try the original. For all of you out there, I'd recommend doing the same and skipping this clone in favor of a few extra years on your life. Buen provecho.

Chef Spike's Good Stuff Eatery Opens, Nobody Seems to Give a Shit

No lines out the door. No lines inside. Not that there was any real hype to begin with. According to Foobooz, Spike was there on Tuesday when the place opened, but after the requisite Scott Schroeder selfie...

Photo Credit: Scott Charles Schroeder, People's Champ

He seems to have split. Not that I was interested in meeting the dude. It would have probably been awkward considering my opinion of him is less than favorable (TV makes you hate people). Instead, I'll continue to hide in the tall grass of the internet and serve up this quick photo series of the newly opened Good Stuff Eatery. My early troll's opinion is that although it's a blatant Shake Shack ripoff, it's not bad. I would caution against shitting on "Cheese Whiz," however. Buen Provecho.

This sign is stupid and anger-inducing.

Good Stuff might have it in the fry department.

Despite my hatred for Evangelos Mendelsohn (Spike's gubment name), the Good Stuff Melt was pretty delicious.

ICYDFMOT (In Case You Don't Follow Me On Twitter), Here's Some Terrible Photoshops for Your Friday

In light of the recent news that culinary bad boy Guy Fieri is wasting someone else's money on a steakhouse that will probably fail within two months of opening, I started thinking about an alternate universe where Philly chefs donned the denim chef coat and bleached spikes and kame up with some kewl koncepts. Then I tweeted a bunch of terrible photoshops called "Philly Chefs in a Denim Chef's Coat with Guy Fieri Hair." Now I'm taking it a step further and presenting some highlights in the series with each chef's money menu item since it's Friday and you need a distraction from your soul-crushing job. Buen Provecho.

The Regular Ass Guy Bullet Point List to Being a Man

While indeed thoughtful, Business Insider's "Unofficial Guide to Being a Man" appears to be written for a narrow audience. After all, we can't all be overworked and miserable millionaires with no life skills at the ripe old age of 28. With that in mind, I've curated my own list for the rest of us, because being a man today is basically the same as it was when our dads were on their grind, just with tighter clothes and a lot more fantasy football.

• If you're gonna talk about where you went to college, make sure you went to a sports school, but if you played sports, stop talking about how you could have gone pro.
• Khakis are both comfortable and versatile. The best ones come from Kohl's.
• Pee outside. Just not in the middle of a busy intersection.
• Tattoos are fine as long as they aren't on your face or neck. Plus, they look wicked hardcore when you're on the Tough Mudder course.
• Join Twitter. Follow Karl Welzein, Zoo With Roy, and Deadspin.
• If your house and your office are both relatively close to the bus stop, there's little shame in the bus game. However, the monthly payment on a Scion or a Ford Focus is about the same as a bus pass. The jury's out on which one's more depressing.
• Do your laundry while watching football on Sundays. Make sure the entirety of your business casual wardrobe is non-iron/wrinkle-free. Life's too short NOT to multitask.
• When the bartender asks, Miller Lite.
• If you perspire, make sure that you're the first to point out how disgusting it is, then continue to sweat like the pig you are. Hope everyone laughs.
• You have to like baseball. This is America.
• When people don't invite you to a party, it's probably because of your perspiration problem. Those people are high falutin' and can suck a fatty.
• It's always better to be the funny drunk guy than the angry drunk guy.
• Brunch is for hipsters. Hipsters are anyone different from you and who like things other than sports.
• There's always another level. You just won't get to it, unless you're referring to video games.
• Place-dropping is cool so long as it's the Super Bowl, the World Series, or one of the majors. Nobody gives a shit how many DMB concerts you've attended.
• If you're not driving and it's free, whiskey away.
• You can't afford cocaine.
• If it's got velvet ropes and lines, you're at the wrong place. Buffalo Wild Wings is down the street.

If you need a little more clarity, this song ought to help.

The Greatest Top Chef Season 11 Pre-Cap Song You've Ever Heard

I blame (thank?) Buzzfeed for the self-serving title of this post, but if you can get past the shitty Garage Band recording and poorly-timed slideshow I made using software that dates back to the invention of the abacus, the results are pretty spectacular. Here's hoping this season of Top Chef will be a lot better than the previous two. Let me know if I should waste my time doing this every week in the comments. Buen Provecho.

The 2013 Philadelphia Wine & Food Festival in Really Bad Pictures

Loafers without socks, leathery faces, and the quiet discomfort of being in a room where everybody makes more money than you. That basically sums up the 2013 Philadelphia Wine and Food Festival. Not that it wasn't a good time. There were some stellar pours, including a perfectly balanced sherry imported by P.R. Grisley Co.* and a sauvingnon blanc from Casa Patronales that drank like a high octane double or triple-IPA (imagine a boozier Double Jack or a less-syrupy Hop'solutely). Plus, it was all you can drink, although I did my best not to render myself useless for the next day's kid party doubleheader.

At the end of it all, I had the opportunity to catch up with a high school buddy of mine who dropped serious knowledge on the challenges of importing wine (P.R. Grisley is only available in 13 states), the effect of the E.U.'s disdain for austerity (It's no secret that Spain and Portugal, where many of P.R. Grisley's imports come from, are kind of fucked right now), and how wine's a whole lot cooler if you're not snobby about it. Check back shortly for a couple videos featuring a real-life Geico caveman and a drunken Spanaird. Buen provecho.

Update: Here's the Spanish bull (toro?) I was talking about. Foreign accents are so cool:

And here's the IRL Geico Caveman:

Dude, you've got some mango salsa in your beard.

*Full disclosure. These guys were my sponsors. I was pretty relieved, however, when their wines were among the best I had all night. It would have been really awkward if they sucked.

Weighing in on Wells, or Guy Bites Big

By today, most of you have seen Pete Wells' takedown of Guy's American Kitchen & Bar. Already heralded as a thing of beauty by aspiring food writers and other folks that rest comfortably outside this restaurant's target market, the questions-only review takes a megadump on the newest Times Square megarestaurant branded by the goateed specter that haunts my nightmares, Guy Fieri.

It's a fun read, but the joke's on us. While we get to maintain such things as our dignity and our hair color, this clown's laughing all the way to bank. He cleared $8 million last year, and I would imagine that much like Krusty, he signed off on the use of his name and all of those dumbshit menu items after a dump truck full of money showed up in his driveway—too busy to think about anything but the dollar signs because he was "rollin' out!" to the next triple-D shoot.

We're hopeful that Mr. Fieri is investing this cash in something other than hookers and coke, especially if he's planning to continue diluting his brand. In the meantime, let's get back to Mr. Wells, for whom I have a few questions of my own regarding the expectations of this review:

Did you really expect this place to be good? Did the New York Times also review the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. when it first opened? Would you expect your readers—most of whom use the company card to impress clients—to entertain a night out in Times Square? Are you fucking kidding me with this? And one more time, just to make sure—did you really expect this place to be anything other than a T.G.I.Friday's with a different name?

More heartbreaking than this wasted review, however, is the scene that just played out in my mind. Guy's sons, Hunter and Ryder (as if we needed more fuel for the ridicule fire. Plus, that sounds terrible together), are seated at the dinner table, staring longingly at their mostly absent father. The family's eating a Papa John's pizza and Guy closes the lid after grabbing a fourth slice. Not sure what to make of the sad faces (because there's still plenty of pizza left), Guy asks them if there's a problem in flavortown, to which the older one replies:

"Dad, why does everybody hate you so much?" 

You know what's worse than being Guy Fieri? Getting beat up because your dad's Guy Fieri. Buen provecho.

He Made How Much Last Year?

Click image to see larger

Here's some surprising and depressing news.  According to the Huffington Post, my least favorite person of all time besides the kids that fucked with me in grade school just cracked the top ten list of highest paid celebrity chefs. I'm sure he puts in the hours, but I just can't get past the Offspring haircut and the "terrible to the point where I want to start cutting myself" style.  He even beat Andrew Zimmern and Tony Bourdain.  If anyone needs me, I'll be spending the next few hours with my head in the oven.  During that time, please enjoy this infographic to see what Guy Fieri can buy for the eight million bucks he raked in last year.  Buen provecho.

If I Won the Lottery

I don't play the lottery and I think it's a sucker's bet, but in a parallel universe where I'm a blatant hoarder living in a trailer with my collection of highly flammable stuffed animals, mainlining Easy Cheese into my face for every meal, I would spend at least 95% of my government subsidy on Powerball tickets and scratch-offs.  It would also be in this parallel universe that I would win the jackpot and be ushered into the world of the nouveau riche, where I would immediately commission the Taco Fountain pictured above and buy an El Camino. Buen provecho.

Full disclosure: The Taco Fountain was actually spawned in the brain of Jason Sheehan, food editor at Philly Mag and Foobooz, the latter of which sometimes publishes my drivel.  I've kind of been obsessed with the idea since he mentioned it, and you should be, too.  Further, if you consider yourself a Maker, perhaps we could get together and build it?  I'm sure it would kill at hipster weddings.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Happy Hour

Dear Mr. XXXXXXX,
Thank you very much for reaching out to me regarding a recent comment I made on Foobooz about XXXXX.  It certainly came as a surprise considering that I changed my phone number not too long ago, but if my remarks warrant tracking me down, then yay me. Since I’m pretty sure that you and your management were the only people who actually bothered to read it, I’ll go ahead and post it here again for a bit more visibility:

“Have yet to have a positive experience there. Dirty glasses, stale nachos, always out of the one beer that I want on their draft list, and the staff is a bunch of jerks. The XXXXX boys need to keep a closer eye on this spot.”