Jun 6
But now the company plans to open 150 of these fast food joints in 2011. And lest you believe this is a middle-American phenomena, one already exists in midtown, a mere two blocks from the recently shuttered Jekyll & Hyde, and is Kosher certified.
Mrs. Garrett photo from X-Entertainment
Denny’s—where I spent many a high school evening drinking coffee, eating Super Birds and smoking in the back room because there was nothing better to do at night—are scarce around NYC. The nearest location, 20 miles away, just happens to be in my favorite part of New Jersey; the region that’s also home to Bud’s Hut and the Linfield Inn. I took this as a sign.
But before heading out to Avenel to finally experience Baconalia (I don’t only wait for hotspots to have a month-long cool-down period) I was warned about restaurants defaulting to imitation bacon. No way, not at Denny’s.
The Maple Bacon Sundae was not a purist affair, however. The bacon crumbles, more fatty than crisp, as I like them, were real all right, but the scourge of diners everywhere: maple-flavored syrup, a.k.a. corn syrup followed by high fructose corn syrup on the ingredient list, was the amber imposter drizzled atop and pooled at the base of the vanilla ice cream tower.
Despite the unnatural sweetener, this was not a bad sundae. The spoonfuls of melting ice cream striped with syrup and smoky nubs of pork were welcome sweet-salty blasts; the only thing that could’ve upped the ante would have been a sprinkling of chopped hickory-smoked almonds.
I still had to admire Denny’s moxie. Sure, bacon desserts are old hat to food trend followers (though it’s a faster trickle-down than craft beers now appearing at T.G.I. Friday’s) but that doesn’t mean the average customer is necessarily ready for the meeting of sweet and salty in soda fountain classics.
The disgust and outrage overheard at a nearby table might’ve been initially mistaken for the matrimonial union between two men.
30-something dad: “I love bacon…but on a sundae? This has got to be a joke, right?!”
Son: “Gross!”
After grandma hobbled back to the table, dad proceeded to fill her in on the maple-bacon atrocity. “Can you believe it?”
I did not hear her response. Perhaps, she’ll now finally be able to say that she’s seen it all. I hope she’s already watched Nannerpuss.
So close…yet so far away. IHOP goes as far as setting up a marriage proposal in the ad for the new Double Cheese Scrambles, and then they don’t even use food as a ring presenter. What else is Stuffed French Toast good for?
Yes, and soon it will be available in the freezer case at Walmart.
My day may be coming soon, though. The harbinger was seeing my first TV commercial for Greek yogurt, Dannon’s entry, the other night. Mainstreaming. According to a recent Ad Age article citing Mintel and SymphonyIRI data, Green yogurt is one of the fastest-growing grocery categories and this style makes up 12% of the total yogurt market.
Then again, Western Beef’s slogan is “We Know the Neighborhood” and I don’t know that the residents of the semi-industrial Ridgewood-Maspeth border are clamoring for thick, unsweetened dairy products…yet. Maybe once the ladies get a load of these ads.
In non-yogurt-related Greek miscellanea, I finally watched Dogtooth last night. Wow, kind of a more incesty, un-Shyamalan-fied The Village.
Emirates has been voted the airline with the best meals, according to a survey by Skyscanner. And indeed the comments on AirlineMeals.net are overwhelmingly positive. That's clearly not an economy example above, and it's just one of many courses.
Hopefully, tenth place Air France, will change minds now that Joel Roubuchon is involved with the menu. I actively avoid most food trucks unless they’re serving something unique that can’t be found at a proper restaurant (I hate standing around outside eating) but this falls into the I’m-just-curious-enough camp. I’ll see what’s up when the roving Air France vehicle hits my work neighborhood on Monday.
1. Emirates
2. Lufthansa
3. Singapore Airlines
4. Aeroflot
5. Qatar
6. Malaysia Airlines
7. Thai Airways
8. Etihad
9. KLM
10. Air France
Singapore Airlines is the only one of the top ten that I’ve experienced first-hand, and yes, they’re fairly ritzy even though the only thing I can specifically recall eating was a decent curry on the way to Bangkok the time I lucked out on a massively discounted SARS-related deal.
Foreign airlines can be fun, top ten cuisine or not. Aeromexico only had beer and tequila—poured from full-sized glass bottles—to accompany their enchiladas (yes, I asked for wine). I wonder if I will be getting rioja and paella on Iberia when I fly next month?
Photo of Emriates Airbus A380 meal from Chow Times
Apparently, Tesco sells a whole line of French Classics, putting our frozen T.G.I. Friday’s Frozen Loaded Cheddar & Bacon Skins to shame. Chicken Chasseur, the star of this store brand’s line, increased sales 226% over last year. I don’t even know what Chicken Chasseur is exactly other that it involves mushrooms; I’d like to imagine it’s a little like this.
Brits may like to pretend they’re refined with their Gallic groceries, but it seems that 14% of them have dined and dashed. Thirty-nine percent, the largest group, have left a restaurant without paying because no one ever brought them the check. I’ll admit that I was tempted to run out on the bill for this very reason at a Mexican restaurant in Vegas.
But flirting for discounts isn't a crime, right? Exalted research firm, Promocodes.co.uk, surveyed 3,000 Brits and it turns out that ladies save nearly 150 pounds ($241) per year “hair tossing, maintaining eye contact, giggling and being overly friendly” to get discounts. More than 56% didn’t have to pay a cent due to their feminine whiles.
And I thought British women were all ugly?
According to a survey of 1,000 consumers in Oregon and Washington by Foster Farms (a company that I always thought was like Perdue or Tyson, but apparently is more indie, or so they would have you believe) 92% think it’s important to buy food grown in the Pacific Northwest, 86% think they are unique and better than the rest of the country for this belief (ok, verbatim: “believe they differ from the rest of the nation”) and over 60% think the Northwest has fresher, more local food than anywhere else in the country.
I would be curious to see the percentage of Northwesterners who ever travel outside of their home states.
This is where I would logically link to the Portlandia bit about the couple who want to visit the farm where Colin, the chicken they are about to be served, was raised. We all know that is funny.
However, I’m also partial to this commercial where Jim Perdue speaks Bloomberg-esque Spanish (mine is no better, but I am not a wealthy man on TV trying to relate to the people). I mean, for purely poultry-related laughs, no Oregon connection necessary.
Original Video – More videos at TinyPic
"who makes chart to show how to make garnimals at cheeseburger in paradise"
That’s a good question! I’d never even considered that such a chart existed, let alone that a human would be responsible for its creation. I’m not saying I have any answers…
This person made flashcards describing what each Garnimal consists of. Bungalow Bob? Who knew they had names?
On a Jimmy Buffet forum, a CIP staffer (at least in 2006) and Parrothead divulges that he can’t share how to make garnimals because he signed a confidentiality agreement. Damn!
I’ve never seen a Cheeseburger in Paradise commercial. Now I know what garnimals sound like when appearing on the water pitcher during a continuing education lecture.
People misspell Garanimals quite frequently. Whether you type garanimal or garnimal, 98% of the content is about those matching clothes for children that I had no idea still existed and possibly only do at Walmart.
Did I ever tell you about the time I got an email merely asking “Can you help me locate a place to purchase the sunglasses that is on the piece of fruit in the drink picture on your website?” (Ok, I did) A weaker person would delete the shit out of that (I get orders for shovels now and again and those go straight to the trash) but I knew exactly what the online stranger was talking about and my strong sense of duty (and library background) compelled me to find those tiny plastic shades.
The best part was the follow-up (for real–I saved the email): “I don’t get that kind of response from people who are friends. Again, thanks for your kindness.”
So there. That was my good deed for 2009. Last year I came up empty and so far in 2011, my do-gooding has been lacking. I want to be the Michael Landon character in Highway to Heaven of chain restaurant needs.
What can I (barely) help you with? Sorry, I still don’t know who makes chart to show how to make garnimals at cheeseburger in paradise.
Ok, now they’ve gone too far. I’ve marveled more than few times over Kraft’s aggressively marketed Philadelphia Cream Cheese. All sorts of recipes have been developed to put cream cheese in places where it has no business being. And I like cream cheese–there’s a mostly eaten block of Philly in the fridge as I type.
Food companies creating uses for their products is hardly a new concept. Just a casual skim through my random collection of cooking pamphlets, brought numerous examples from the past.
A 15-page 1963 7-Up missive contains a recipe for Tuna Chow Mein, which in addition to canned tuna, mushrooms, water chestnuts and beansprouts, includes soy sauce and two bottles (7 ounces each) of everyone’s favorite uncola.
What they didn’t do—and what Kraft has essentially gone and done—is to create a seasoned sour cream and sell it specifically as a dish-enhancer. Kraft has a new product, Philadelphia Cooking Creme, available in four flavors. Yes, seasoned cream cheese, for cooking.
Use a tub of Santa Fe Blend in the Tex-Mex Beef & Rice Casserole or 10 ounces of Original (not sure how that’s different from soft cream cheese) with Ritz crackers and Kraft grated parmesan to make Coquilles St. Jacques.
The only similar example I can think of offhand is Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup being commonly used as a sauce component rather than eaten straight from a bowl (though it was one of my favorite canned soups as a child, probably because it’s fatty and salty). But it’s still called a soup, not a sauce enhancer.
Jif, for one, could add ginger and soy sauce and make Chinese peanut sauce, chile and lime could be Thai peanut sauce, cumin and cayenne could Latin-up a blend. All would fit into savory recipes they’ve already published. Parkay and Yoplait could also get on board–the possibilities are practically limitless.
Carnation and 7-Up covers from Old Cookbooks.com
I’ve been aware of the existence of Lisa Lillien, a.k.a. Hungry Girl, for some time, only in that I know there is a wildly popular person who makes low-calorie versions of Americans’ favorite foods using dubious substitutions. Now that I have been DVRing her show on Cooking Channel (which I thought was supposed to be a younger, hipper, cooking-focused Food Network but clearly not) I have learned so much more. I’ve only watched three episodes, but this is what I know:
Despite her diminutive stature, Hungry Girl is a grown woman somewhere in her forties, not a girl.
No matter what she says, using lettuce leaves for buns and soy patties instead of beef do not taste like a real hamburger.
Bringing your own bottle of one-calorie-per-spray Wish-Bone Salad Spritzers to a restaurant is very dedicated (almost as much as that woman on MTV's True Life who toted around a bottle of ranch in her purse).
The defeated tone of voice during the show’s animated intro when the cartoon Hungry Girl chomps a bite out of a plate and mournfully chirps, “I’m so hungry!” goes straight into my cerebral cortex and slowly oozes down my spinal column, confusing my entire body on how it should react to such a statement. I can only shudder (and then I rock myself to sleep while eating an entire chocolate-swirl cheesecake made from chalk and mud).
A fan of Laughing Cow cheese since I was a child (they used to come in tiny cubes and it was a rare treat I’d only get at the “gourmet” store on yearly trips to Cannon Beach) it pains me to see the wedges mixed with fat-free sour cream to make girlfredo, yes, a mock alfredo sauce.
Also, fat-free cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, cheese and any other product that naturally contains fat, tastes like soft nothing. Munching on moistened dirt would be more satisfying.
Creating a brand called Hungry Girl instead of Skinny Girl or Skinny Bitch is very smart. Calorie-counting women are hungry and they wish they could eat more. Acknowledging this is down-to-earth and conspiratorial not asperational and abrasive. Despite her misguided recipes (though as I skim through them they start seeming saner and saner) Lisa Lillien seems like a nice person.
So yes, her emphasis on quantity—pointing out the enormity of allowed servings is requisite for nearly every recipe–over quality makes sense for the audience; lifelong dieters who are burnt-out on self-denial. But wouldn’t you rather eat a small portion of really good onion rings than a “ginormous plateful” of onions coated in Egg Beaters (what is egg substitute, anyway?) and crushed Fiber One cereal?
Hungry Girl is married to the producer of iCarly, the Nickelodeon tween show that popularized spaghetti tacos.
Dan Schneider, “the Aaron Sorkin of tween sitcoms” is obese. I doubt his weight defines him the way that Hungry Girl’s does, but it must create an unusual dynamic in the household. Does he also eat pieces of chicken breast coated in egg substitute, wheat flour and sugar-free pancake syrup and pretend that it’s Chinese take-out? Do you think that Hungry Girl wanted to swap her trademark Tofu Shirtaki Noodles for the pasta and use cabbage leaves instead of corn shells for the spaghetti tacos?
Oh, I got the answer (it helps to actually read to the end of a two-plus-page article).
“Mr. Schneider, the writer, said he plans to have the iCarly cast to his house to make a batch in the next few months, so that he can tape it and post it on his YouTube account. He’s only had a low-calorie/low-fat version prepared by his wife, Lisa Lillien, whose Hungry Girl franchise appeals to weight-conscious snack-food lovers. ‘I’ve never tasted the real, real version.’”
By the way, Hungry Girl keeps the taco shells in her version. The ground-beef-style soy crumbles? I hadn’t seen that coming at all.
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