The Girl Who Ate Everything

sorry, it's not food porn

Whenever I have friends visit me in NJ (which is kind of rare, as this place is not high on the excitement scale), they ask to eat at the legendary home of planet-sized pancakes (and planet-sized everything else, maybe even...planets): Country Pancake House in Ridgewood. That photo is what the left side of the restaurant looks like if your cone cells don't work and if there's some nice soft natural lighting coming in. I took this photo during spring break for my photography class last semester, which I emerged from with an A-. Sweeet. Could've been worse considering that I found out a few weeks before the end of my class that my camera was broken, hence why I couldn't take any close-up shots. I kept telling my mum that it didn't focus correctly and she insisted that I wasn't reading the manual correctly. Yeeeup.

carby things

Sarah went in for a late dinner last Friday after eating a late lunch at Mitsuwa (which I'll talk about in another entry). The bread basket sadly tasted of un-freshness—it was a tad crusty. That was the first time I ever had "meh" cornbread at the pancake house. Later we saw baskets of freshly made cornbread, so I guess we just had bad timing.

Funnily, even though it's a pancake house and thus would necessitate the consumption of pancakes, neither of us was in a particular pancake-eating mood. I've tried a number of breakfast items on the menu, but had yet to delve into the lunch/dinner options. I'm on my sandwich kick, yes? The one that refuses to die? (Some people who haven't known me for long think I've loved sandwiches my whole life, but that obsession really only started last semester.) There were no simple mozzerella-basil-tomato sandwiches that I love so much on the menu, so after much blank staring at the menu, my eyes drifted to the tuna melt. I've heard of the sandwich my whole life without ever having eaten one. Hm. Perhaps this was the time to de-virginize myself from the realm of tuna melts? DOES THE MELTY TUNA WANT ROBYN?

Although I knew that all the platters were large, for whatever reason I thought the sandwich platter would be a managable size. As you know, I've eaten a gajillion sandwiches in NYC and have generated a sizeable NYC sandwich memory bank to use as a reference. "Ah, the sandwich can't be that huge." Yeah.

...But I was so wrong. So very wrong.

many fish died for this sandwich

I don't know if this photo conveys the massivity of the sandwich, but I could only eat half of it. Such occurences of non-eating don't happen often in my life, kind of like catching a lunar eclipse, or the next coming of the Messiah. I shared some of the other half with Sarah.

stare into the mayonnaise-y beast?

Thar she is. While I would've preferred if the "cheese" better fit the "melt" part of the sandwich name and that the whole thing was overall smaller, the platter was good. The toasted bread (I think it was rye) held up to the mountain of tuna salad and didn't fall apart. I thought the fries were especially good—there wasn't a limp one in the bunch and they had a good crust. Although I wouldn't want to order this sandwich again, I'd say it was worth trying once. If you love tuna salad to death, this sandwich is all fer yewwww.

waffle with a few additions

I forgot what kind of waffle Sarah got (something with bananas and white chocolate?), but she requested extra strawberries that were unfortunately not completely defrosted for optimum palatability. Overall, the waffle eating experience was probably just okay. I don't think we talked much about it since we were both kinda like, "Uughggh uhmm stomach umm it's full of stuff uhh I hurt", etc.

aftermath

Ah well, we tried. You should've seen the spaghetti dish someone at another table got. It was like a bucket of spaghetti...on a plate. A large bucket. Two girls at the table next to us split an order of pancakes and they only managed to finish half of it.

We're so wasteful. [sigh]

random food related stuff

Today is Skip Lunch to Fight Hunger Day to support CH's "Feed the Kids" program (and I realized it's too late to skip lunch...so...do it another day, yeah). You can donate online or at Starbucks. I skipped lunch yesterday...perhaps that counts? When I told Carol at dinner that I hadn't eaten lunch, she was surprised that I could eat so much (you should never be surprised, bah!) since for her, she needs lunch to stretch her stomach before eating later in the day. I think I'm just not human. Yeah, that's it.

Steve Cuozzo hates "out-there desserts that incorporate savory and herbal elements and mix incompatible essences with lunatic abandon". I cannot hate a whole category of desserts, even if it's kind of weird. And...hell, I'm a picky eater. One of the hated desserts in question is this beaut:

you couldn't pay me a million dollars to make this

That is the butternut squash ice cream on chocolate soil with toasted squash seeds and pumpkin cake with mole toffee, mole sauce, and pumpkin sauce at wd-50. It might just be my tastebuds (and Kathy's) but IT IS SO TASTY. I wouldn't say I have the most adventurous palate, but...trust me on this one. I do not steer my readers wrong.

"Be-cow's I'm ever so bewildered" is a disturbingly hilarious tale about...weird cookies. And weird students. And why sending things anonymously is not cool. The cow cookies are somewhat hideous, but what I want to know is whether they're tasty. Or edible. I'm wary of any food that isn't so much about what it tastes like as what it looks like...or whether it has a "so bad I want to bash my head against a wall and then inflict some more pain on it by using some other method of self-torture" pun, such as those cookies. The story reminded me of the time I passed Cookies in Bloom in Brooklyn last summer and was, of course, immediately drawn to it because I have cookie radar. Here is my proof:

HAHA, get it?!?!@#$

Yup. I won't ask who would spend $50+ on a bouquet of cookies decorated like hot dogs, but...I'm rather curious. I might do it as a joke for someone who really likes hot dogs, although a bunch of real hot dogs would probably be a better present.

Not everything is scary. Look, normal cookies! Yeah! That's about it. Have I toad you happy birthday? Or that I love you beary much? Ehehe! Aahahahah! The bears and the toads are staring into my soul! ...HOLY CRAP, IT BURNS!!!

Have you seen Augieland's feast at El Bulli? YOU SHOULD. It's insane x a billion. Take a look at the meal you will probably never eat. [rubs belly]

Oranges are Free informs the world of the Jello Belt. The...the wuh? BELT OF JELLO, FOOLS! Does anyone else find that map on Wikipedia a bit disturbing? It looks like the continental US got caught in a shootout and is bleeding to death from Utah. I have no futher comments.

Wait...jellobeltjellobeltjellobelt.

I don't really like jello—do you? It was only fun when I was little, although even then we never used jello, just Knox unflavored gelatin, which we'd mix with juice. Hooray for my health-conscious mum!

Mary said that we should start a religion based on pudding. I could be the Pudding Pope.

Burgers and cupcakes go together like...frosting and meat. Wait, that doesn't work. Oh well, here's a new place to check out [via A Hamburger Today]:

BURGERS AND CUPCAKES Mitchel London has changed his cafe, Mitchel London Foods, into this new spot that serves, yes, only hamburgers and cupcakes from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. There is a breakfast menu Monday through Saturday (the catering company in this location is still Mitchel London Foods): 458 Ninth Avenue (36th Street), (212) 643-1200. - NYT

...I'll go. WHO'S WITH ME?!

Also from the NYT article:

SAM MASON, the pastry chef at WD-50, plans to leave that restaurant to open a spot, yet unnamed, in SoHo by the end of the year for tapas, desserts and drinks: 525 Broome Street (Thompson Street).

Sweet baby jesus, I'm there. That also means I gotta head to wd-50 again before he leaves.

zefrank wants to make an earth sammich

The fact that the earth has never been a sandwich is probably why things are so fucked up.

RIGHT. ON. In his latest show, he urges his viewers to make an earth sandwich by placing slices of bread on the ground on opposite sides of the globe. It's rather hard if you live in the US since your opposite is probably a sea creature living in the Indian Ocean, but somewhere else this earth sandwich may become a reality. Mayyybeee.

If you ever wondered what sandwich really means, it obviously stands for Special Association for Narcotics, Deception, Witchcraft, Infanticide, Coercion and Hatred.