Tokyo, Day 1

The Fooder Conquers Asia

Life, my dear reader, would hardly be worth living if you didn't get my opinions on Japanese and Thai cuisine. Therefore, I hasten to the magic realm of Thai-pan, aka. Thailand and Japan, for your dining pleasure. I will eat the finest street food and liquor these backwaters have to offer. Stay super extra tuned for details of culinary glory RIGHT HERE true believer.

A cryptic message from The Expert:

Couldn't sleep. Thinking in my fooder voice. (The Fooder gets in yer head --editor) Blogs are like assholes... I've crashed on couches with people who have cable, I've watched the food network, I know that burger isn't medium rare... Everyone seems to be outdoing themselves to charge more for something that used to be cheap (insert review for hipster taco, cupcake, doughnut, ramen, bar food)...
That and I'm hungry. I'm trying not to drink beer or eat crappy food for a week. A whole week. It's harder than I thought. thanksgiving will break me of these shenanigans  but I might return right back into this routine for an unheralded clear headed look at the holidays. The holidays are always a time for guilt drinking, hate eating, and commitment fucking anyway. It's never as tragic as you hope it will be.

If you want to go out for tea sometime after work let me know. We'll hit up all the after hour tea shops...who's names escape me at the moment.
Cheers!

I couldn't agree more. Why would anyone bother to name a tea shop? Dens for savages and communists are un-deserving of the honor. 

But my friend, I hear your pain, the suffering unmasked by your heartfelt, sleep-deprived words. Soon the world will understand what it means to dine on the succulent morsels of blended meat and gelled offal. Why? Because we will tell them, we will shout it from the mountaintops. The maitre'D's of the world will quake at the approaching thunder of our flatulations, their sous chefs whither in our shadows. We will digest their misbegotten "entrees" and "hors d' oeuvres"  and leave them bereft of hope. Give thyself not into the malaise that besets you, instead, prepare thyself for conquest and antacid. No flambe nor tar-tar will hinder us from our destiny...our fate...to rule the foodie blogosphere!

The Fooder and Co.

I am the Fooder; behold my visage and tremble lest I write thee a bad, lo ~ terrible ~ food review.




The other Players:

The Foodwife: mine goodwife, a fancy-shmancy lady who takes me to fancy-shmancy places.




















The Foodling: mine teenage daughter who's quick wit and narrow appetite flay many a lowly line chef.










The Expert: mine good friend who thinks he knows a lot but hath yet to post a damn thing.

Fooder Expose: The New Jersey Turnpike: Where food goes to die.

The drive from Philly to NYC is a paltry 2 hours. You'd think a man would be able to resist stopping at the roadside attractions along the way. Well, you'd be wrong. The "To" leg required a cigarette break and some relief from poetry radio, the only semi-tolerable pap on the dial. But the way back was a different, this time, I was hungry.

Enter: The Molly Pitcher Rest Stop: Birthplace of Cheese-thulu, Beast of 1,000 spare tires, Mother of the Unholy Saddlebags and High Priestess of the Star-Spawned Gut Busters.

Inside the belly of the beast.

Now, you may ask, was I really so hungry that I had to stop less than an hour from my destination? No. I could have waited. But I was ensnared by the lowest and basest of human whims: Nostalgia. Yes, along that noisy and congested stretch of asphalt, I saw something that rocked me back to my childhood; days spent with my grandmother clipping coupons and returning sale items for regular price.Two words--a name, which flung me back onto the happy trails of my youth: Roy Rogers. In honor of my dearly departed gran-gran, I now required a roast beef sandwich. 

The fabled Molly Pitcher stuffing some balls. Get ready for a colon blow!

Oh Roy Rogers! You were my heart's delight when I was 8. The guttering flame on the torch of the Neshaminy Mall's erstwhile glory. But time hath brought thee low; she hath turned thee into a painted mockery of thy former self, harlot though ye were.

My first indication that something was terribly wrong, aside from the slack-jawed grill attendants and stacks of pre-packaged sandwiched moldering under ancient heat-lamps, was the fact that my hamburger was not a hamburger. Alas, it was a breaded chicken sandwich with...what's this? Bacon and cheese.

Who the fuck eats chicken-baco-cheese sandwiches??? And why was it filed under hamburger? My heart sank; my stomach churned. Well, perhaps the succulent roast beef of my faded youth would bolster my spirits...

Jesus! What the fuck is this?! One bite and the sour taste of bile rose in my throat. This isn't meat! It's shoe leather. Maybe cat leather piled on a grease soaked bun. Why dear lord did I not immediately heave this abomination back into the hellfire that had produced it? Shame. Shame and regret. My shame was too great, my failure complete. I could not demand a refund because $10 was the price I had to pay to see what a crippling and humiliating passion nostalgia really is. I'm sorry Gran-Gran, but never again.

In my degradation I looked desperately for an escape, but the way out was barred. A throng of humped, gawking, female teenagers and their smug and smirking den mother were spreading out across the Molly Pitcher killing floor. Camera-phones aloft grinning they shared two notable characteristics: enough spots to dot a leopard and t-shirts advertising some new Christian boy band called "One-Direction." Of course I assume they must be Christian pop because their name implies the rapture and these girls looked like the butt end of the pope's smock. Apparently, these lads must have been somewhere nearby suckling on the old Roy Rogers teat. The proven existence of such things as Christain boy-bands and pre-pubescent stalkers was enough to make my already delicate innards launch a full revolt. I lurched for the exit.

We've got something in common...the infernal demon seed of Roy Rogers churns in our bowels!

Well, that was enough for me. I topped off my 24 oz bladder smasher and hoofed it for the rental car. My only desire after this excretory excursion was some south Philadelphia suburban oblivian.

So please, do yourself a favor. If you have to do anything other than smoke or walk your dog, and you see one of the many I-95 rest stops comin' up over the horizon, drive on by, man. Drive on by.

Indian Food. But is it really?

I ate Indian Food today from some place called Indian House or Indian Palace or Indian Playground -- it doesn't matter. What's important is that I didn't immediately have explosive diarrhea and was able to calmly walk into the bathroom and relieve myself like a normal human. What I'm not certain about is whether it was the source of the food or a growing tolerance to the wiles of this ever foreign cuisine.

Maybe there truly is a world beyond naan, a glorious palindrome and the sponge for my chicken tikka masala. Still, how can one country, which hold the cow as sacred above all others, use so much damn dairy? Cheese, cream, milk, yogurt; I'm sure there's a dish which contains all three four of these ingredients. Personally, I think people like this stuff because it's not really spicy, but has some kind of flavor and it's like eating fried ice cream but you can pretend it's healthy because it's ethnic. Any way you put it, it's always a pass for me, but sometimes you have to swallow your creamy, cheese curd filled fried yogurt milk potatoes and smile, or else they won't call you when they're going to eat real food like Lou Malnati's pizza.

Fooder's Health Tips: 8oz, 8 glasses, 8 days a week. Thanks Jake! Words to live by.

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