double yolk is weirding me out, but i'm not backing down

sometimes hating leads to good ideas

[16:31] turbo2oh: i cant stand people at chipotle that always have to ask for more of everything
[16:31] turbo2oh: they usually dont need to be having more of anything
[16:32] kingkevin91: are you making a comment about their weight?
[16:32] turbo2oh: yes
[16:32] kingkevin91: zing!
[16:32] turbo2oh: this woman today asked for more cheese 3 times
[16:32] kingkevin91: haha
[16:32] kingkevin91: wow
[16:32] turbo2oh: and got more sour cream
[16:32] kingkevin91: sounds tasty
[16:32] turbo2oh: on a 'salad' one
[16:32] kingkevin91: well you gotta eat healthy these days
[16:33] turbo2oh: haha true
[16:33] turbo2oh: it just pisses me off cause they dont charge extra for it
[16:33] turbo2oh: and i know it drives up the base cost of everything
[16:33] turbo2oh: so i feel like im paying for it
[16:33] kingkevin91: you are
[16:34] kingkevin91: probably shouldn't fight it
[16:34] kingkevin91: just go with it
[16:34] kingkevin91: get enough extras to make 2 burritos
[16:34] turbo2oh: im a burrito bowl kinda guy
[16:34] kingkevin91: ok
[16:34] kingkevin91: pile it on
[16:34] kingkevin91: then ask for an extra bowl
[16:34] turbo2oh: i want enough sour cream i cant see whats below it
[16:34] kingkevin91: yeah
[16:34] kingkevin91: keep asking for more
[16:35] kingkevin91: like over and over again
[16:35] kingkevin91: maybe like 10 times
[16:35] turbo2oh: then ask if i can just have the container out of the steam table
[16:35] turbo2oh: and the giant spoon
[16:35] kingkevin91: and when they do it that 10th time
[16:35] kingkevin91: be like woah...
[16:35] kingkevin91: little heavy handed there aren't we?
[16:35] turbo2oh: haha
[16:35] turbo2oh: thats too much
[16:35] turbo2oh: maybe ask someone next to me if theyd eat that?
[16:35] kingkevin91: then be like, oh well, just give me another bowl, cause that shit is not gonna fit in one

wheaton tastes pretty good

yesterday i went to the taste of wheaton with my parents and it was a good time. on the way there, i had the following exchange with my dad:

me: we're going to wheaton....i wonder if there will be any peruvian chicken (spoken with extreme sarcasm)
dad: really? you do know that there are literally dozens of peruvian chicken restaurants there. (shakes his head)
me: yeah, but i-
dad: (cuts me off) ...literally dozens...
me: (sitting in silence)...

so yeah, my dad unintentionally gaussed me.

either way, i was excited about this taste of wheaton, as i enjoy eating food a lot. i figured, wheaton would be the place where pupusas would flow like wine, and it did not disappoint. i consumed the following:

• 1 cheese pupusa with cole slaw topping - $1
• 4 pieces of avocado/cucumber sushi - $2
• 2 vegetarian dumplings - $3
• 1 slice of white pizza with sliced tomatoes - $1
• 1 spinach and cheese calzone - $1

there were so many pupusa options it made my head spin and i am kind of surprised i only ate one. the dumplings were really good too. the sushi was ok and the italian food was a bust. that is one lesson i am intent on learning and abiding by in the future. whenever i am at a festival of some sort....avoid the italian food cause it will be shitty. this held true at renfest and the laurel main street festival and the trend continued yesterday. i don't know why pizza doesn't seem to translate well in these venues. i mean...i love pizza normally and actually ate it in some form every day this weekend, so you can tell my diet has been going well.

another fun observation was checking out the random booths set up in the non food area of the taste of wheaton. some of them i found to be ok and reasonable. montgomery county library? sure, why not? i guess kids should read and shit. churches? eh...not feeling it, but it makes sense sort of. latino health initiative? sounds good. new2you computers? hmm..this one caught my interest as their motto was something like "tell us what you want and we'll build it for you". they had random computer monitors and peripherals with generic "low price" or "hot deal" stickers on them, but no specific information. i was tempted to be an ass and check them out, but i was with my parents. the other notable booth was the montgomery county department of permits...which...i just...why?

chinese and mexican, together at last

i have made it a goal of mine to not eat out for lunch at work more than once per week. it not only saves me a little money, but i tend to eat healthier than if i were to get something from a restaurant. this plan has worked out pretty well so far, although i do occasionally crave some restaurant fare.

just now as i walked to the mailbox down the street to return my netflix movie, starring gavin rossdale and terry crews, i noticed a menu for a new local restaurant. now that i only buy lunch once a week, eating out becomes that much more exciting, and thusly i like to look for new eating establishments. well here was a menu for king bao and taco tortillas. from what i can tell, this is one restaurant that serves both chinese and mexican food.




no and then!!!





why do chinese restaurants do this? i have listened to louise and dave discuss how these places can't cook good chinese food, so they offer more choices that are also poorly cooked in an effort to mask the quality of their food. more options apparently equals better. i have been to a few of these retaurants and for the most part that last statement does not hold up. i have seen chinese and "american" food places before (danny's, lenny's, wenny's, new garden, etc.), but this is the first collaboration with mexican food i have seen. i don't mean to be mean, as i am sure the people that own these restaurants are very nice, hard-working people, and while i think their plans seem misguided, they tend to do decent business and know what they are doing. i wonder...what combination could be next?

while this new restaurant, as well as the other establishments, have some vegetarian options that might taste ok enough to warrant my $5, i know the quality of the ingredients may not be up to par...also, i know i can count on ingesting a lot of grease as that is chinese/other type of food tip #2 to covering up the food's quality.

while i am on the subject of not so great chinese restaurants, another thing i have noted for years is how poorly proofread the menus tend to be. i realize english is usually not the first language of these restaurantuers, but the spelling and grammar in these menus would make 6 year old me laugh out loud. why has nobody done anything about this? i should start a business where i offer my proofreading services to all chinese restaurants and get rich in the process. (note: i'm sure i have made many spelling and gramatical errors in this post, as well as all of the others, but you don't need to point them out to me...kiss my ass so what?) my favorite questionable wording from a quick scan of the kb & tt menu is in reference to their flour tortillas:

"our flour tortillas are made fresh throughout the day to maintain freshness not"

now either they did not complete their thought, or they were psyching me out at the end and those flour tortillas are in fact not made fresh throughout the day, in which case they should have used a comma or succession of periods to denote a pause and then added the "not" in all caps with a bunch of exclamation points.

anyways, back to the food. let's look at my options. i could order:

• vegetable lo-mein and monterey jack cheese and black bean quesadilla
• broccoli with garlic sauce and a guacamole taco
• vegetable burrito and mixed vegetable szechuan style
• dozens of other equally appetizing combinations

the bottom line: the food there will not be very good and i will probably eat some of it. i like to eat.

what does mace stand for?

...it stands for boobies in my face! don't get that annoyingly random and obscure reference? well then you my friend need to view safehouse starring patrick "and then her pants just fall down" stewart. and yes, the bachelor party/birthday weekend was fun and exhausting. the strip club was weird as there were a lot of strippers there, who would come up and flirt with you to try to get you to buy a lapdance. i found this very uncomfortable. i instead watched the "free" show on stage, later advancing up front to give a few dollars and get boobies in my face from my favorite girl of the night, who looked a lot like the coach's daughter in friday night lights.


other highlights include:

• getting tipsy before we got to a.c.
• telling jim to bet on black, thus winning him $100
• learning that dan has that "titty club look"
• waving goodbye to sean's dignity
• knowing that unlike others, i am not done
• falling asleep playing video poker with nam at 3 am

chris' 30th was also fun. a decent number of people showed, but a lot of chris' full keg remained undrank. there was a lot of chatting, drinking, video games and mma watching. this also gave me and dave the opportunity to finally make our own salsa using his new food processor. ingredients included tomatoes, cilantro, red onion, garlic, lime zest and juice, habanero pepper, tomatillos, bell pepper, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper. thus the first batch of the salsa bros salsa was born and it turned out better than i had hoped. in my opinion, it was definitely better than any jarred salsa i have had and is on par with the best salsas i have had in restaurants. our next batch should be made any day now as we have been putting it on a lot of our food and are almost out. we picked up some new ingredients to play around with...so that should be fun. salsa.

coming up, louise and i have all the crazy wedding events to attend. i'm hoping they are fun and go by quickly. also, sean and brigitte will be getting married on saturday. i wish i could go and i hope that everyone there has a fun time as well. on sunday dave and i will be going to volunteer at the pgaspca. i have been meaning to get involved in some volunteer work for a long time, but i have been lazy. i am looking forward to helping out and i hope that nothing upsets me too bad while i am there.

one more thing to note is that our annual friends fantasy football league has been started back up by phil. i am already in too many leagues...but oh well. let the campaign for more bench spots begin...

bento!

louise got me a bento box, which i have been wanting for a while. it is essentially a lunch container that is divided up into little sections (almost like those classic tv dinner containers, but much nicer looking). i believe the idea is to create an aesthetically pleasing array of colors with your food, while at the same time allowing for various textures and tastes. this is my first experience with a bento box. i put the meal together last night. it consists of:

• a bean and cilantro salad i made
• red peppers
• alfalfa sprouts
• pepperoncini
• cheddar cheese
• triscuits
• a hard-boiled egg
• some organic peanut butter

i really should have included some sort of fresh fruit, but i didn't feel like going to the store last night and had to make due with what was already available in my kitchen. normally these are filled with japanese food as the bento box originates and is primarily used by the japanese, but i don't really cook japanese food (although louise did make me some delicious sushi earlier this week).

now i am brainstorming other items i may want to include in future bento meals. they have to be items that do not require heating. here's what i got so far:

• broccoli
• dark chocolate
• berries (black, rasp, straw, etc.)
• watermellon
• banana
• chips and salsa
• leftovers that can be eaten cold
• carrots
• tofu
• sushi
• grape tomatoes
• orange slices
• apple slices
• pineapple
• edemame
• zours
• string cheese
• salad
• jalapenos
• avocado slices

i could obviously go on and on, but those were the first items that came to mind. do you have ideas for stuff i can put in my new bento box?

that's nut what i'm talking about

i have always enjoyed eating nuts. as i become more health conscious, i find that they serve as a healthier snack than the usual chips, crackers, pretzels, etc. while i have nutted it up more than the average person, there are still many nuts that remain unmined for me. i have decided to rank the nuts i have eaten based on taste, health benefits, aesthetics and cost.

#7 brazil nuts
these gigantic nuts originate from brazil (i assume). they are kind of bland tasting and truthfully, i have only had these in mixed nut containers or some sort of trail mix. also i occassionally get an allergic reaction to these nuts when i eat them. healthwise, 100g of brazils contain 12g protein, 61g fat, 2.8mg iron, 180mg calcium, 4.2mg zinc. all of these things contribute to the lowest ranking on this list.

nut rating: deez!

#6 pine nuts
these small nuts are pretty tasty and are apparently the seeds (not technically a nut) of pines believe it or not. my experience with pine nuts have been solely through cooking with them or eating food that have been cooked with them to serve as an accent to the dish. they are very expensive and do not not really lend themselves to snacking. pine nuts have slightly more protein than brazil nuts.

nut rating: nut bad

#5 peanuts
also not technically a nut (it's a legume), peanuts are the most common of nuts that i have been around. they are cheap to buy, have a moderate grade taste and are versatile in both snacking and cooking. they are also pretty healthy where 100g of peanuts contain 24.3g protein, 2mg iron and 3mg zinc. while i don't ever do this, nor condone it, people can bulk up their nut mixes by adding copious amounts of peanuts.

nut rating: nuttish

#4 macadamia nuts
ah...the nut from hawaii (actually native to australia). this is a deliciously sweet nut with a softer consistency. while these nuts are very tasty, they are very high in fat (though also high in the good fats) and 100g of macadamia nuts contain 7g protein and 40mg calcium. macadamia nuts are also very pricey.

nut rating: nut

#3 pistachio nuts
these nuts are generally sold still in their shells. while delicious, half the fun is getting these shells open. they are often times dyed red for some reason. they are also reasonably healthy where 100g of pistachios contain 19.3g protein, 14mg iron, 140mg calcium.

nut rating: nutstanding

#2 cashews
cashews are my favorite nut taste-wise. i like cashews like garfield likes lasagna.
almonds. the nut grows in a curious way on the tree, hanging below a fleshy, apple-like fruit. it is related to the mango, pistachio and poison ivy. crazy huh? cashews are also very expensive, making them more of a treat than daily snack. they are pretty healthy as well where 100g of cashews contain 17.2g protein, 60 micrograms vitamin A, 3.8mg iron.

nut rating: nutlicious

#1 almonds
almonds combine the best aspects i am looking for in my nuts. they are not as cheap as peanuts, but cheaper than pine nuts. they don't taste quite as good as cashews, but they are very tasty. they might also be the healthiest nut where 100g contain 16.9g protein, 4.2mg iron, 250mg calcium, 20mg vitamin E, 3.1mg zinc and 0.92mg vitamin B2.

nut rating: nutnificent

some other nuts i didn't list include walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, and chestnuts among others. walnuts are ok, but i don't really care about this list as a whole. what do you think about the rankings? did i miss any obvious nuts?