I have been busy working hard so I can keep the power and internet on to bring you idiotic videos and rants. Aren’t you fortunate? Today, I am posting a video about an impromptu excision to South Carolina. I was SUPPOSED to be down in Mobil, Alabama with one of my dear friends, Travis, but thanks to life, I only made it about five hours south instead of the planned ten. Oh well, we made the most of it.
Watch this video and see what a spooky naval ship and a Man vs Food challenge have in common.
Oh yeah, the spicy tuna rolls had the texture of cookie dough with the temperature of your cheek. And the number Ten Roll was so hot it made the back of my skull hurt.
The first post for the new page is especially special. It’s even more especially special when it’s done by Brian over at Review the World dot com. He’s such a great dude and it’s fun times whenever I get to collaborate with him.
Today we take on the Shamrock Shake from McDonald’s that surfaces this time of year and yes, it’s for a limited time only. Let’s what Brian wax poetry over this minty shake and worry everyone who is watching him from a distance. I’ll be adding my own review shortly but for now I want you to watch this awesome video.
Thanks Brian! You are certainly a master of your craft.
AND…. Here is my take of the Shamrock Shake! Sorry it took so long.
I needed to start something on here with a more congruent theme or at least a side project. I know I have “Where Did You Go” but over the years I think just about fifty online news sites have copied and pasted nearly all of it and I get a little tired of doing the work for them. Especially the Huffington Post which is written on a third grade level and use misleading titles to trick people into reading an article about Kanye West in hopes he died by having is wiener caught in a vacuum at the bottom of his pool. So, while I will continue the fun posts about past celebrities, I think I need to develop another page and invite others in the fun.
“For A Limited Time Only” is the page dedicated to shedding light on what’s available for a fleeting moment in our busy bee lives. Maybe it will return next year or maybe it will be a discussion twenty years from now like how Crystal Pepsi tasted like soapy piss but we bought it anyway because Van Halen told us to. Either way, you can find it here.
Alright, one last thing. I want to open this page to awesome readers like you. I am stuck on a pretty strict diet of high protein and low carb in preparation for the 2014 trail race season so I probably won’t try the four patty burger donut with special sauce but if you do, feel free to drop me an email and I’ll post your article right here! I’ll tweet the hell out of it and before you know it, you’ll be on the road to food stardom. You never know.
This idea is something Brian over at Review the World and I have been batting around and I think this is a good time to kick it off. I know if you have been here long enough you have visited his spot and it’s no surprise we collaborate quite often. He’s an awesome guy with a great talent for reviews and videos.
Thanks and tweet me over at Veggiemacabre if you have any suggestions or know of a limited time offer out there that might be fun to write about!
About a month or so ago, I got an invite from some of the coolest webmasters I know to take part in a multi-blog challenge. The challenge was to go to our local malls and test the Chinese cuisine and post it here on our little slices of the internet. Of course, I am beyond flattered to be included in this project and while many don’t take this to be a challenge, I do. I hate eating alone in public places and hate eating in food courts even more.
This is my mall. There are many others like it but this is mine. The name is Haynes, like the underwear. That’s all you need to know about it. Well, besides the fact that if you were to travel back to 1984, the only real difference would be a lack of cellphone stores and toy helicopter kiosks. Other than that, Haynes mall is one giant time capsule.
I make every effort in life to avoid going to the mall. From the hundreds of similar stores to the confusion on walking traffic patterns, I can honestly go my whole life without ever stepping foot in a mall again. I can’t put my finger on exactly why I disdain the mall so bad but if I was to guess, it might be the time when I was eleven and saw an old lady with dementia pull down her pants in a Walden Books. Yeah, that might have something to do with it.
Regardless of scars, this challenge needed to be met so with my enlisted help of a co-worker, we set off to Haynes Mall to eat exotic dishes from the Orient while still in a football throw distance from both Belk and Macy’s. Like I said, I hate to eat alone in a public place.
The food court at Haynes mall has three Asian style restaurants which cover China, Japan and Thailand. Since there were two of us, I decided that we try a different restaurant to compare dishes. I figured it would put some depth into the post or at least be more than, “I got rice and chicken. Tasted like rice and chicken.”.
Right away we wrote off the Japanese place called Saporosan. I’m kidding, I don’t remember what the fuck it was called. All I know is I watched the guy giving out samples eat every other one. While amusing, I couldn’t help but wonder what atrocities where happening in the kitchen if their marketing guy could answer what really was eating Gilbert Grape. (I know that might not make sense but…work with me.)
So that left two place; ThaiMax and Mandarin Express. I went with ThaiMax because the green and white bright colors attracted me. I’m serious, I am a sucker for contemporary looking food joints. If it has stainless steel and solid bright colors, most likely I will buy something from you. My partner decided to stick to the more traditional food court Chinese food and went to Mandarin Express.
We will start with my choice from ThaiMax. (I had the theme to Title Max in my head all day after this adventure)
I chose the spice chicken/Teriyaki Thai chicken with steamed vegetables and basil rice all for $8.00. And it was pretty damn awesome. In fact, I was so impressed with this mall food court dish I think I told my coworker if I wasn’t in a mall and she wasn’t present I would take off my shirt and paint murals of horses to the music Schubert out of pure food inspiration. She said nothing. In fact, her face was a bit contorted and rightly so. I saw what she got from…
..Mandarin Express. Good lord, the staple of modern Chinese food in any mall of America. It looks inviting and smells alluring but what my coworker got was nothing less than terrifying.
So apparently this is sweet and sour chicken with fried rice and steamed vegetables. I am guessing that what it was supposed to be. But judging the twenty-two year old guy on the frier named Jeff, he may have had the cookbook upside-down. And backwards.
Where do I begin? Let’s start with the sweet and sour chicken. First off, there was no visible sign chicken was ever there. It was as if they fried refried…fried. Just a big ol’ ball of fried gob dipped in sweet and sour sauce. Everytime I took a bite, it literally fought me from chewing it completely. I don’t know what they fried in there but I am hoping it doesn’t end up being a channel 14 exclusive story.
What about the vegetables, you ask? They couldn’t even steam vegetables right but instead cooked them in some clear glop. I can take a lot of things but what I can’t take is clear glop. For obvious reasons. Also, they were as flaccid as a dude on a three-day whiskey bender. (This post is headed south fast, no?)
I would eat that over Mandarin Express. Andrew agrees.
I felt terrible she was stuck with such a tragic lunch. Seriously, Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods would probably take issue with Mandarin Express. I demanded we trade and she ate the awesome TaiMax food and I ate shitty fried rice that was fucked up too. I couldn’t believe it! I swear, I think they get fried rice from a can.
So, in conclusion, it was a nice break from the office with tons of people watching and I was able to return some pants to Banana Republic. Since Banana Republics live in malls, I guess I am forced to venture in once in a while. This was a great excuse. And at leaset I was able to eat in the basking glow of this amazing stained glass art.
ThaiMax: The spicy chicken/Terriyaki Thai with steamed veggies and basil rice was pretty damn awesome. Ingredients were fresh, the dude serving gave me a ton and I found no hairs in my food. All around I give it an A. If I was about to be executed for running over Michael Bay with a dump truck and this was my last meal, I would not protest. I wasn’t expecting mall food court food to be like that. You’ve come a long way baby.
Mandarin Express: The fried nuggets in sweet and sour sauce, veggies covered in duck sperm with canned fried rice, I would say you are a disgrace to Chinese food. I know this is an American version of Chinese food but come on, you got to put some effort into it. I had to work the rest of the day close to the community defibrillator. Just in case. I grade it a G for “GOOD GOD WHAT THE FUCK?”
That is my adventure and want to thank Matt and Brian for the awesome joint project idea! You are all awesome. Please now check out the other peeps who have taken part in this journey. Click their pics and get whisked away to better reviews.
Jay from The Sexy Armpit. He is awesome.Long time buddy, Brian, and the guy who is the pro at these types of reviews.Matt from Dinosaur Dracula. If you don’t know who he is please ring the attendant call button and someone will be by to hit you on the head with a tack hammer.The newest member to the blog family and awesome person, Molly from Swagger Mom Tales.
A few weeks ago I was cruising through the grocery store and walked past a rack of magical red and green martini shakers and thought, “Will/Bill, should probably talk about these” but instead I put them off for a later day. That day was yesterday when I found an evening to go out and finally buy them. The problem was they were nowhere to be found. Absolutely my luck.
The gods, however, took pity on me and I only needed to go to eleven stores before I found the same display with three Holiday Martini Shakers. This time there was an extra one in the group, pomegranate. I scooped up all three and headed for the door. Well, first the register. That’s when I learned the value of having a membership card to the grocery store because the price on the display said $4.99 but upon checking out it jumped to a gut-punching $7.99. So, this vlog cost a bit more including higher quality booze. I can’t handle the charcoal filtered plastic bottles like , Mr. Miller’s vodka.
I apologize for the length but I had to cover all three and show you how I can screw up the easiest of martinis and margaritas. Plus, I got to use my office blender and I love showing that thing off.
Casserole of Disaster 