A survey of area fast food, ad nauseam

Okay, I'm back with the fast food reviews. I had put this one off, because the last time I went there I left feeling sick. I didn't want to write a review based on that past experience - I wanted to be in the moment. I've taken a few (well deserved, I think) swipes at Taco Bell, but I went back, ate their food, and here's my review:

First of all, I won't do the Taco Bell extravaganzas - that is, the stuff with sour cream, guacamole, Crisco, saturated pig fat, battery acid, and two other items that make it into the seven layer something or other. I'll scout these places out, but I won't drink the Kool-Aid. Taco Bell has some evil products, dietetically, which I simply refuse to sample, based on personal taste and a generally non-suicidal outlook on life.

There was a time in my life when I frequented "The Bell" on a regular basis - happy times in my life, when I was unbelievably poor, my best friend was a stoner, and I was young and happy and maybe a couple of pounds overweight. Taco Bell complemented my lifestyle, because, as I said, I was young and poor and hanging out with potheads. We could buy a half dozen tacos for about what we could dig out of the seat cushions of our car. Several trips to Southern California and living for years in a town with a large Hispanic population have upped the ante somewhat, and Taco Bell has failed to call my bluff.

So, I ordered a couple of soft tacos. While not terrible I would certainly call them lacking. Lacking flavor, first of all - the flour tortilla is an over-powering mess, sapping any taste from it's interior. There is absolutely nothing gastronomic to be gained from this shell. It sucks any flavor from it's mediocre interior, leaving one with an equivalent mouthful of Wonder Bread. Corn tortillas (which I know you can get with the hard tacos - give them to us on the soft ones) aren't available.

The "meat": please don't call it that. The reality is some kind of paste or sauce, and referring to it as "meat" only emboldens the vegans (and I think we can all agree that doing so would be unfortunate). This is Chef Boyardee-style meat, a suitable substitute only if your mother didn't give a damn. It's cousins are Spam, and army rations, and tripe, and anything that sacrifices substance for style (big time - like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly).

Taco Bell is currently marketing their product as "fourth meal", an additional meal on top of a diet of fat and soda. Their goal, apparently, is to push those of you with eating addictions to the upper stratosphere of loser-dom. Shrewd and immoral marketing, in my opinion.

My soft tacos weren't so bad, although there was a consistency issue. Some had a good amount of the meat paste, some were significantly lettuce, and the amount of cheese varied. I would think, given the mechanical nature of the finished product there would be some across the board uniformity. I think, instead, that these are products assembled by men with little regard to their individual mass, given that those masses are nearly valueless.

The cheese is really horrible, with a thin white veil - it is apparent that it isn't fresh. I'm thinking either several days old or frozen. I think my second guess is more likely, although I wouldn't rule out a combination of the two. The lettuce is similarly "not of this earth", but that is par for the course. It's seen some bad times, but it's not talking...

You do, of course, always have the option of spicing up your meal with the hot sauce Taco Bell so graciously provides. I chose the "Fire" sauce, the hottest of the bunch, which I found to be the equivalent of ketchup on the "wussy to spicy" scale. Maybe my tolerance is too high, but this stuff is basically taco sauce for Queen Elizabeth...

I don't recommend Taco Bell, given that there are so many other similar places that offer something other than a "paste-based" dining experience. I do recommend that if you are an individual living on Mars or the Moon in the near future, once we have colonized, that you stop in for a simulated taste of what we once enjoyed on Earth...

Survey of area fast food, revisited

I'm going to continue this idea one restaurant at a time, when I happen to visit one which I haven't already covered. I figure this will allow me to approach the topic with a relatively fresh impression (ensuring that I will experience at least something fresh that day).

Today I went to Burger King, another chain with really creepy advertising. Burger King ads feature a masked "king" breaking into people's homes and offering them food. If I rolled over in bed and found this fast-food Jason lying next to me my first thought wouldn't be a ninety-nine cent breakfast. Of course on the flippity-flop (yeah, I just said that - go back and read it again if you don't believe me) I suppose from a marketing perspective anything is better than focusing on the food. The truth is the only reason I bring up the "evil king" at all is because the subtotal on my receipt was $6.66 and if I'm going to fast food hell I'm naming names...

The truth is I've always had a soft spot of sorts for Burger King, in the sense that when I think of the lowest of the low - McDonalds, Taco Bell, et al - I tend to cut BK a little bit of slack. Just a bit, like "dug out of a dumpster" versus "destined for the dumpster", but the distinction is there. I've only recently figured this out - when I was ten years old Burger King gave out New York Yankees baseball cards. Somehow that little marketing mind-fuck is still paying dividends all these years later.

On to the menu, not all that different from what I ate at McDonalds. In truth, it was just a little bit better. Although I'm sort of embarrassed to admit it, I kind of liked the chicken fries. Very overprocessed chicken but slender enough you could ignore the texture. There was some seasoning which kept the fryer-grease flavor at bay. Best of all? No detectable beaks or feet!

The seeded bun for the burger was an added bonus over McDonalds, making it at least look like food and not some sort of carrying case. I don't know if they actually grill on premises or paint on grill marks and spray it with "grill flavor" but either way they manage to vaguely convey the illusion. The fries were pretty standard.

I guess I'd choose BK over McDonalds. Thank god there are other alternatives...

Burger King Nutritional Information

A survey of area fast food restaurants

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I am excessively slim. In fact, I could probably put on twenty pounds and still be relatively thin. Lately I've been trying to gain a little weight. The main problem is that I work irregular hours and trying to establish a routine of three squares a day is difficult. So I've been hitting some of the local fast food establishments in my quest for excessive poundage...

McDonalds:

Might as well start with the bright shining symbol of crap food. Everything about McDonalds screams "fake processed food". The molded plastic decor, the shiny plastic logo, even the garishly colored plastic kiddy playground. They even symbolize the ultimate in dead end jobs. You go to McDonalds to die.

I hadn't eaten here since I saw Super Size Me and probably wouldn't have if I hadn't decided to write a blog about fast food. Even then, I swear, there was some subconscious resistance. I had to force myself to get out of the car. A little voice in the back of my head kept spamming me: "You don't have to do this".

I tried a burger, the small McNuggets, fries and a milkshake. The fries were edible. I just don't get the burger - if you didn't know better you'd swear it was just a bun, because that's pretty much all you can see. That and this little blob of ketchup, where I imagine some machine injects a specified portion into the interior. Kinda like NASA's recent Mars missions - I suppose it would be too dangerous (and too costly) to have a human being do the job. The burger was bland but edible as long as I didn't give it too much thought while eating.

The McNuggets were the same, deriving most of their flavor, it seemed, from the oil in the deep fryer. The texture is bizarre - what did they do to those poor chickens? The milkshake was sickeningly sweet, with very little creaminess. It was like drinking strawberry jam.

I imagine leaving McDonalds feels about the same as leaving a hard-core pornography store: you feel kind of dirty, and you hope you don't run into anyone you know. Afterwards I felt bloated and sluggish. An hour or two later I crashed hard. I don't recommend the place, and I won't go back.

Sinapis Pizza:

I used to love this place but hadn't been there for a long time. I met my old roommate for lunch there yesterday, because it's close to where he works. I think that pretty much sums up the secret of Sinapis success: location, location, location! They're right next to the mall, right next to several corporate office parks, and they are always busy.

I appreciate good service, I'll tolerate poor service, but purposely bad service really bothers me. You have to work hard to provide service this appallingly bad, which makes absolutely no sense. The problem with bad service is that it often creates problems you don't want to deal with, and basically just perpetuates itself. Get over yourself and take a little pride in your work! On a scale of one to five I'll give Sinapis four Soup Nazis. Although probably deserving a five, I'll cut them a break for the simple fact that no one yelled "No pizza for you!"

Which brings me to the pizza: I ordered a couple of plain slices. The crust was great - a fantastic golden brown canvas that could have been used to create a masterpiece. I could take or leave the sauce. The big problem was the cheese. I'd ordered a Snapple green tea. The "fun fact" on the bottle cap said that a glass ball would bounce higher than a rubber ball. I think a Sinapis cheese ball would bounce about as high as the rubber ball...

Quiznos:

I avoided Quiznos for a long time, mainly due to their advertising. The first Quiznos commercials I can remember had these bizarre creatures I can only describe as talking hairballs singing some weird lo-fi song about how they "love the subs". They were clearly courting the stoner crowd and I figured they had Taco Bell-style food that you had to be baked off your ass to endure. They followed this up with talking baby commercials that seemed to confirm my suspicions.

A friend and I took a drive down to Orange, CT one day to check out some music stores. Hungry and unfamiliar with the area we stopped at a Quiznos based on his recommendation. I've been hooked ever since.

They make a really great sub - good bread, decent meats and cheeses and fresh toppings, toasted to perfection. Add a drink and you can get all that (and a bag of chips) for under ten bucks. It's one of the few fast food restaurants I frequent on a regular basis.

Two caveats: if possible, don't order it to go - it's better if you eat it at the restaurant. That's not a knock - any hot food worth eating will suffer if it sits for too long. Also, try going at off hours when they're not too busy. They use a conveyor oven and if you send too many things through at once the temperature drops and they come out undercooked. Again, not a knock just acceptance of the physical laws of the universe.

Boston Market:

I've always liked Boston Market, mainly because I'm a big fan of comfort food. Boston Market offers a quality product at a reasonable price (please keep in mind that we're talking relative to other fast food restaurants - it certainly doesn't compare to my mom's cooking). They have a nice variety that makes for a pleasant change from typical fast food.

I think this is enough for now. It's likely I'll revisit this topic again. One thing I'd like to make clear: I don't advocate visiting any fast food restaurant, particularly in light of America's obesity epidemic. In fact I think that fast food is a big part of the problem. If you are looking for some sensible information on nutrition, try some of the links below:

http://www.nutrition.gov/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/nutrition.htm
http://www.mypyramid.gov/

Nutritional information for the restaurants mentioned in this post (sorry, no information on Sinapis was available):

Quiznos
Boston Market
McDonalds