An IHOP (International House of Pancakes) opened in my DC neighbourhood of Columbia Heights, and I decided I’d better go and have an American Cultural Experience by eating there. It was pretty exciting. I had to wait for a table, so I got a card instructing me that they would call “Mo’Nique” when my table was ready. Instead of using my real name. It was slightly confusing. But a couple of minutes later they called it and I managed to realize they meant me and I plonked down in my diner seat.
This, dear friends, is the kind of American Cultural Experience that you get for $8. I just ordered the breakfast, but the pancakes and the free special apple “Fall flavours” crepe came with it. I did not expect to get all of this. But I think this is the American Dream. Lots of bad food for very little money. I kinda felt the breakfast was a healthier choice than the Cheesecake Pancakes or some of the chocolate options on the menu, but who really knows.
The pancakes were good. Everything else was meh. I ate about a third of this food then felt like I needed to puke and went home and napped. It’s pretty sad when you need to have a nap after breakfast.
So, the pancakes were good. But then I was tempted by the wrongness of it all and put the fluoro pink and blue fruit syrups they have on the table on to try, and that was scary. See on the crepe, those deceptive few slices of cinnamon apple? Well, I expected there would be more apple inside the crepe. But there was just more cream! Soooooo much cream! And it tasted like it was from a can.
I came to one conclusion from my trip to IHOP. If I was drunk, this would be the greatest thing in the world. But sober, not so much. Give me some fancy Melbourne or Sydney cafe breakfast any day…. where was the baby spinach? The sauteed rosemary portabello? The dukkah dusted eggs?
Remember that The Simpsons episode where Homer joins this group who follow the movement of the Rib-Wich, a special limited time sandwich at Krusty Burger, across the country, like some kind of rock band groupie?
I thought that episode was hilarious.
Then, I got to America and found out IT IS ACTUALLY BASED ON SOMETHING FROM REAL LIFE.
The McRib is a special fake pork rib sandwich sold by McDonald’s that has a cult following. And people, THE McRIB IS BACK. There are signs hanging outside every McDonald’s in the country. There are even news stories about it on NPR (called “Hunting the Wild McRib“, where they talk to a guy who once drive ten hours to buy a McRib).
There’s also a full history of the McRib on Wikipedia, if that should interest you at all. I think the most interesting thing is the painstaking work that has gone into tracking the history of this processed food… then you have the online McRib locator, which in times less abundant for McRibs than this present moment, shows exactly where McRibs have been sighted in the country over the past few weeks.
I mean, just read and absorb this sentence from the NPR article:
“Alan Klein trained as a meteorologist, but the Minnesota man’s true love is the McRib. He tested out his storm-tracking abilities by creating a website that lets McRib fans track appearances of the sandwich.”
Absorb that.
Anyway.
I try not to eat McD’s very much at all, especially since the first time I tried it in America it was about a million times more disgusting and greasy than in Australia and made me feel siiiiick. But the other day I went to the garishly “school spirit” themed McDonald’s outlet on my campus, largely because I am sick of all the other terrible overpriced food on my campus, and decided to try the McRib.
I didn’t have my camera with me, and my McRib experience wasn’t so enlightening that I would go back and buy another one just to take a photo, so unfortunately no snaps from me, but there are several on this blog post about a McRib flashmob.
But basically, like the Wikipedia entry says, it is a bumpy processed pork thing with shitloads of barbeque sauce on it, that sweet spongey McDonald’s bread and some raw onions and pickles.
The meat (not that you can really taste it under all the sauce) is just so overprocessed that it looks like some kind of grey matter. It was actually almost resembling Indonesian bakso in texture, or something that you might get as part of a terrible in-flight breakfast called a “pork breakfast patty” or something.
The sauce is basically just barbeque sauce.
It was pretty gross. Just typical nasty fast food.
I wouldn’t drive 10 minutes for it honestly, let alone 10 hours.
But I guess others have different ideas. From the NPR piece:
“It’s a sort of holy relic of the time, meaning the late ’70s, early ’80s, when we celebrated the fakeness of food,” he says.
Oh America. You continue to amaze and confound me.
Need some fun in your day? Need some joy? Need to develop a new hobby without the expense of purchasing a football? Or maybe you just need a good beverage inspired by the world’s most biodegradable sporting equipment.
KICK A POO JOY JUICE IS FOR YOU!!!
Spotted today in a coffee shop here in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia… a huge banner for Kickapoo Joy Juice. What a name.
I also have no idea what they are doing on that illustration on the can. Barbequeing themselves? The levitating elephant might be pooping and the other guy kicking? I dunno.
Immature I know, but I’m the same girl that laughed for days after discovering Poo brand tofu in Jakarta.
Their Website doesn’t seem to be working though, so I can’t find out more. How sad.
Not a great pic. But in the deli at Carrefour, I spotted these heart shaped, pink doughed, take it home and bake it pizzas, obviously whipped up in celebration of that most icky of Hallmark holidays, Valentine's Day.
How wrong is that?
Is also looks pretty wrong besides the dough… it's got ground beef and very weird looking chunks of cheese on it.
I wanted to buy one to see what colour the dough would be after cooking the pizza, but I don't have an oven. So no taste test unfortunately.
Maybe this is what we should be selling at Sweethearts Pizza, dad? I think this almost outdoes the pizza doughnut I road tested a while back.
Today I decided to go to this doughnut chain store called J-Co, which is super-dooper popular here in Jakarta. People crowd and queue up to get some of its sugary goodness.
The doughnuts are all the colours of the artificial colouring rainbow, but I had never actually ventured close enough to see what the flavours were.
Until today.
The doughnut that first caught my eye was the one THAT LOOKED LIKE SOMEONE HAD REGURGITATED A PIZZA ON IT.
"Apa ini?"
"Pizza doughnut"
"Mau ini."
I had to have one.
How could you say no to this?
(I'm obviously talking about the one in the middle with the chunks on it… the other two are Oreo and choc-mint. Boring flavours.)
It was sitting next to the cheese doughnut, and another one that looked like diarrhea doughnut. I'll try them some other time.
So, the taste test.
I thought the doughnut itself might be savoury, but no, the usual super sweet doughnut. The glaze tasted weird… kinda like sweet but spicy tomato with sausage flavour… I think that sauce on the top is sambal (chili). The chunks of sausage were what really pushed it in to "WTF???? WHY???" territory. Yes people, that's meat on a doughnut.
It didn't taste unpleasant. Just sweet, and really bloody weird!
There's quite an obsession in Asia with sweet/savoury combinations… lots of sweet cheese rolls, corn or peanut butter in sweet foods… some of it is fine, but some of it my meek Western tastebuds just can't understand.
