Nov 30
Jeez, I don't read the news for a week and American chains take over the world.
Nepal got a Pizza Hut/KFC combo.
Pakistan is getting a Hardees.
Russia has 78 Subway shops and they're going to have 922 more by 2015.
Europe will welcome its first Chipotle in London come April.
It's as if Thanksgiving is either for marathon kitchen duties or fine dining (even I’m guilty of perpetuating that). Who's to say you can't chain it up on our nation's day of gluttony?
Here is a selection of Thanksgiving options at chain restaurants. This is by no means exhaustive so please let me know if you are aware of more.
Boston Market
This is kind of a duh Thanksgiving-wise since they sell turkey, gravy and the like year-round. You can eat a limited menu in-store or take advantage of their "Catered Holiday Buffets" starting at $9.99 per person that can also be delivered. Lane Cardwell, CEO of Boston Market says "Our traditional holiday meals help families spend more time making memories with loved ones and less time in the kitchen." The concept of intentionally making memories gives me the creeps.
Cracker Barrel
Starting at 11am on Thanksgiving
you’ll be able to eat enjoy oven-baked turkey breast, cornbread
dressing, gravy, baked sugar-cured ham, sweet potato casserole with
caramel pecan topping, cranberry relish, your choice of a vegetable,
biscuits or corn muffins, pumpkin pecan streusel pie and a beverage
(excluding milkshakes) for a mere $8.99. Unfortunately, the nearest
Cracker Barrel to my zipcode is 47 miles away in Mt. Arlington, New
Jersey.
Dallas BBQ
Wouldn’t a Texas-sized blue Hawaii (or even their new Bubbalicious cocktail with a shot of bubble gum vodka) and Hennessy wings be the perfect accompaniment for a turkey dinner? $14.99 will get you roast turkey, chicken vegetable soup, stuffing, baked sweet potato, cornbread, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie at everyone’s favorite cheapo rib joint Dallas BBQ. There appears to be no way to directly link to this special on their website but it is posted on Facebook.
Domino's
No turkey pizza but…they claim they will deliver 1.1. million pizzas in the US on November 26, a 50% increase over usual Wednesdays. "Thanksgiving Eve is one of our busiest days of the year," says Jenny Fouracre, Domino's Pizza spokeswoman.
Popeyes
Despite no hint of its fried nature in the official name, Popeyes’ Cajun-style turkeys
have indeed spent some time in bubbling oil (though I don’t think
they’re cooked on site). You must place your order five days in
advance, but for some reason I have zero faith in the Court St.
location nearest me doing this correctly.
Ruby Tuesday
They are keeping it traditional with a $12.99 meal
that includes turkey medallions, mashers (a.k.a. mashed potatoes),
stuffing, cranberry chutney and snap peas. Not so traditional is their
apostrophe usage: "Thanksgiving Feast (Sized Just Right) for the Kid's"
You can actually reserve a table at the Times Square location (and
others) online. Fancy.
TGI Friday’s
Did someone say half-priced loaded potato skins?. T.G.I. Friday’s will be taking a contrarian approach and encouraging drinking and football over creating family memories. Says John Neitzel, president and chief operating officer, "We invite you to step away from the turkey and up to the bar this year. You'll find half-price appetizers including great new wing flavors, drink specials where they'll let us, back to back football games in HD and that 'Thank God It's Friday's' attitude you won't find anywhere else.”
Thank God that attitude will be confined to 12 confined locations around NYC.
White Castle
Every year I say I’m going to try the slider stuffing recipe and every year I don’t. This year I won’t either but I like knowing that such a creation exists.
Thanksgiving pizza photo from Junk Food Blog.
While McDonald's is insidious and weasels into all nooks and crannies of the globe (minus Iceland) Burger King randomly asserts itself. I would've assumed Russia already had the chain. But no, Moscow will get its first BK by end of year.
In what sounds like fake news, the mayor of Moscow apparently started a doomed chain called Russian Bistro in 1995 to compete against McDonald's. Their slogan: "It does not hurt to try."
Bun Troubleshooting Tool photo from a photo tour of a Russian McDonald's factory at Funatiq.
If you can decipher urban teenspeak, that is. Apparently, neither The New York Times nor the New York Post published the verbatim Facebook update that cleared 19-year-old Rodney Bradford of a robbery charge because it was "indecipherable."
"ON THE PHONE WITH THIS FAT CHICK… WHERER MY IHOP"
The kid wants his Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity, obviously.
Oh, and I just learned a little street lingo myself. Be very careful what you ask for at IHOP
This is why Brooklyn can never have anything nice. There's no way a high-class chain like Cheesecake Factory would set up downtown when people are shooting and stabbing over a 40-cent Buffalo Wild Wings promotion down the street.
Celebrating my birthday at the Atlantic Center Mall Chuck E. Cheese's opening week cured me of all desires to ever set foot in that shopping center again (ok, I had to get my driver's license renewed at the second-floor DMV). Tabletop diaper poopers, animatronic abusers combined with oblivious parents create the violent hot wing-loving teens of the future.
The most trouble I ever caused at a chain in high school was sharing a plate instead of paying for my own at Izzy's buffet.
According to Brownstoner, yesterday it was revealed at a Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable that two “nationally known” restaurant will be coming to downtown Brooklyn, 345 Adams Street, specifically.
Fast food? Casual dining? I don’t picture any upscale chains fitting in. The Morton’s in the nearby Marriott is about as much as the immediate area can handle. I predict a Red Lobster and Olive Garden. Nothing radical. I definitely don’t anticipate a Cheesecake Factory or P.F. Chang’s—those are way too massive and Vegas-y suburban.
Then again, I didn’t imagine an Arby’s on Fulton Street either.
Did I love it? Eh, it’s purely a platonic relationship.
Not that I make a habit of frequenting higher end seafood chains, but my recent experiences at McCormick & Schmick's and now at Legal Sea Foods (not so much Bonefish Grill—I’m sad that I didn’t have time to use my $10 ten-year [dating] anniversary gift card before it expired. If you don’t mind giving out personal information, you can get promotional gift cards on your birthday and anniversary for registering on their site. I get off on crap like this) have felt a little desolate and dreary. I’m not sure if it’s the economy or that I dine too late and the room has emptied out by the time I’m hungry (that’s what eating sliders for lunch at 4pm will do to you). At 9:30pm on this particular Saturday, there were only five or so other tables occupied while on my previous visit in 2004 there was a solid 45-minute-wait.
The shrimp dumplings–or rather wontons as they called them–were preferable to P.F. Chang’s version. The shrimp tasted like shrimp and the wakame salad was refreshing for a chain appetizer.
Bizarrely, I liked everything about this special except the fish. The mahi mahi was overcooked and a bit lifeless, but I liked the Spanish-meets-fall flavors of kale, raisins and sweet potatoes. I’m not sure where the cashew crust fits in to all of that. I probably would’ve used pecans because that seemed more logical.
I’ve never been to a restaurant, chain or otherwise, so aggressive in talking up its wine. I don’t need any prompting, as I’m one of those oddballs who always requires an alcoholic beverage with my chain dinners because I’m classy (one of the reasons why I don’t gravitate toward fast food unless it’s the daytime or super late night). But our server must’ve just attended a pep talk on promoting their Chilean wine, also boldly announced in an insert in the drink list. I think the Olive Garden servers are also supposed to highlight wine, but at least in the city they don’t even make an effort.
We appeased him by ordering a glass of Cono Sur Pinot Noir, then he went into a spiel about how you can now take unfinished bottles or wine home due to changes in the law. (I was just going to say that I’ve never seen anyone actually take advantage of this, but the other night two women at Bocca Lupo ordered a second bottle between them. I admired their moxie. They did take a majority of that bottle to go, though.) Eh, I started with a cocktail so one glass was fine.
Speaking of wine, the next time I’m at the Garden State Plaza I’m totally eating at the Napa Valley Grille. There’s something very twisted about attempting to emulate West Coast wine country inside a New Jersey mall. Even better though, would be eating at the Napa Valley Grille in Yountville. French Laundry? Never heard of it.
Legal Sea Foods * 1 Garden State Plaza, Paramus, NJ
Slate asks why Arby's is struggling more than other fast food chains. Moneybox columnist Daniel Gross thinks it's the low quality meat, lack of healthy options and "killer non-meat app." Hey, what do you call that Jamocha shake?
Meanwhile, Brooklynites who don't care about taste and fast food salads will soon be treated to the borough's first Arby's in the historically landmarked Gage & Tollner space.
On the other end of the spectrum, Ruby Tuesday has spent around $100 million in efforts to create more upmarket food, service and decor, pretty gutsy in this economy. Will servers "clad in hipster black shirts and black pants," lobster tails and wine suggestions work for a chain best known for its burgers?
Tidbits I didn't previously know: Ruby Tuesday owns an inn called RT Lodge that used to only be for managers but is now open to the public (road trip?). Also, Peter Glander, Ruby Tuesday's executive chef (pictured above with the chain's founder) used to be a sous-chef at The Modern.
For better or worse, uptown residents can now get their riblets closer to home. The city’s latest Applebee’s recently appeared in the new mall at Bronx Terminal Market and according to this Craigslist ad, the soon-to-open Harlem Applebee’s is hiring.
I’ve been semi-seriously toying with the idea of extricating myself from office work, though I don’t neccessarily see myself as a server, cook, dishwasher, host, bartender or expediter (all available positions). I haven’t worked food service since 1990 when I was a dough maker in a delivery-only Pizza Hut.
Then again, the ad does say, ”experience is a PLUS” not a requirement.
Did I love it? Sure. Then again, I love White Castle. No burger snoberry here.
Technically, White Manna isn't a chain because it's not affiliated with the Jersey City location with the missing N, White Mana. Close enough for me, though.
Perhaps to my detriment, I’ve never been one of those single-minded bloggers who can focus clearly on passions like pizza or hating cilantro. In this case, I’m talking about burgers, the everyman foodstuff of the moment.
Recently my attention has been drawn to Nick Solares’ New Jersey slider posts on A Hamburger Today not because I’m slider-crazed but because I’m in this part of that state, specifically Linden, at least once a month if not more getting my share of mall culture and classic late 20th century chains. And I’d never paid any mind to these still thriving (well, some of them—the Linden White Diamond closed right after I read about it) relics I drive by on a regular basis.
White Rose System in Roselle was a bust because I became inexplicably car sick on the way there and couldn’t appreciate my full-sized ketchup-heavy kaiser roll slider (slider doesn’t equal mini burger, it is specific to the griddle steaming process) and crinkle cut fries, and these places almost always serve crinkle cuts.
The following Saturday on the tail end of an unusally burger-filled week (Thursday I had a cheeseburger at Waterfront Ale House—they’ve always done right by me but on this occasion by medium-rare came out medium-well. Maybe that’s why I forget my uneaten half in the car overnight and didn’t even feel pain when I tossed it in the trash) we decided to try the no-secret-to-anyone (heck, Guy Fieri’s graced the compact red-and-silver diner with his outsize presence) White Manna in Hackensack, a little further north than my usual stomping grounds.
Two seats opened up at the counter after we arrived so we weren’t relegated to the midget seats in the window. I know Americans have grown since the ’40s, but a whole foot? This was the perfect spot for viewing the cooking procedure, which takes a little longer than you might think. Compared to McDonald’s (I was going to say White Castle to be more apples to apples but a person could go gray waiting for a combo there) this is not really fast food. It can take ten minutes for the naked balls of meat to make it from the right side of the crammed griddle to the left, potato roll on top, cheese melted, steamed through and through.
The finished product is a bit more substantial than a White Castle slider, and the meat’s texture is less baby food mushy. If you order yours to stay you add you own pickles, ketchup and/or mustard. The only off part to me were the onions, which are thinly cut rings instead of chopped bits. There’s no way to take a bite without a strand or two of onions pulling out while you try to gnaw free.
Every other fry was cooked a shade beyond golden, which was just right. There’s nothing worse than pale mealy frozen fries.
White Manna * 358 River St., Hackensack, NJ
Linen Theme by The Theme Foundry
Copyright © 2024 . All rights reserved.
Follow
