VA Assembly Aborts “Happy Hour” Bill (no ultrasound performed)

Late last a month, a bill that would allow restaurant owners to advertise happy hour specials online was withdrawn out of concern of it being “too controversial.”

Let that sink in for a second while I provide a quick summary on what the VA General Assembly has been up to lately:

A bill that would require a forced ultrasound screening for any woman seeking an abortion – that stirred up outrage and mockery from every corner of the country; that incited scenes like THIS to unfold on the steps of our Capitol — was ultimately deemed uncontroversial enough to pass into law. Meanwhile, a bill that would allow a restaurant (notice I didn’t say “bar,” we’re not allowed to have those here) to promote a drink special offered in its establishment before 9PM (again, our overlords will not tolerate drink specials after 9PM) was simply “too controversial” to even bring up for a vote.

The controversy was centered around a fear that the legislation could have a potential negative effect on minors. “If the bill would have passed, our biggest concern was about the increase of overconsumption of underage drinkers,” said Daniel Fabian, the coordinator of alcohol and substance abuse at the University of Richmond, in an article published in Monday’s Virginia Gazette. (Funny, I too had a “coordinator of alcohol and substance abuse” when I was minor, but I just called him Gary. He had a convincing fake ID, an older brother who sold weed and parents that were never home.)

So, the fear is that a restaurant advertising discounted drinks on their website or facebook page would just prove too enticing for minors…cause if there are two things that teenagers love, its alcohol and saving money. Not to mention that, no matter how enticing a happy hour special may be, said minors are SIMPLY NOT ALLOWED TO BUY ALCOHOL. So what’s next? Outlawing car commercials for fear they may encourage underage driving?

Ah well, hopefully with this behind us lawmakers in Virginia will redouble their focus on legislation that seeks to create jobs. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Place (The Restaurant…The Movie)

One industry trend that has grown a little stale for me is that of the super-minimalist restaurant name. Over the last few years there seems to have been an increasing number of establishments cropping up with simplistic, one or two-syllable names that offer only the most fundamental idea as to what your dining experience will consist of. Just a few examples off the top of the internet’s head: Eat, E.A.T., Eatery, Egg, Thirst, Rice, Spice, Salt, Butter, Food, Fork, Bread, Melt, Taste, Sip, Drink — need I go on? And while this isn’t exactly a worldwide phenomenon, it seems to be nearing its critical mass in some of the country’s larger food cities (New York, I’m looking in your direction…cough…WHY WON’T YOU LOOK BACK AT ME!!!???)

Thankfully, this trend has thus far spared us here in Richmond, VA, where we still value a restaurant name that beats you over the head with its concept.

"Today's special is a gumbo infused with the flavors of Aaron Neville's mole and served in a Saints helmet. I would also like to add that WE ARE A RESTAURANT THAT SERVES CAJUN FOOD FROM NEW ORLEANS!"

Anyway, thanks to the folks at Eater NY, I have recently discovered the mother of all minimally named restaurants — a place simply called The Place.  The Place opened way back in 1998, undoubtedly serving as one of the instigators of vague-name fever, while simultaneously taking the trend to its logical conclusion (cause, until someone has the balls to name their restaurant Thing, there’s just nowhere else to go). What’s more, it appears they’ve thrown down the gauntlet on what, Dining Gods be good, will become another great restaurant trend: tortuously awkward promotional videos!

Click the image above to link to the video–but first, a few disclaimers:

1. Watch this only if you enjoy cringe-worthy acting and dialogue that appears to have been written by an alien who spent less than 10 minutes observing humans in a restaurant.

2. While I am definitely laughing AT this video, I in no way mean any disrespect to the restaurant’s owners or employees (who all seem delightful, btw). They’ve run a successful restaurant in arguably the world’s most competitive city for 13 years; I make jokes on the internet — THEY WIN. The Place looks charming and I’m sure that their wine tastes like blueberries and/or licorice and that they make delicious Aroogahlah (sp? — Sorry I’ve never been to Argentina so I have no idea what this product is). Still, c’mon, this shit looks like a deleted scene from The Room.

I am what I ate. I’ll be what eats me.

“Even kings are eaten by worms.” – Zach Morris

It started, innocuously enough, with my wife and I lying in bed discussing “Saved By the Bell.” I was impressing her with my encyclopedic knowledge of the Zach Attack catalog (a routine that I like to call “foreplay”) when it dawned on us that the episodes in question had originally aired roughly 20 years ago. TWENTY YEARS!!! If the Guinness Book has a record for “the fastest segue between light-hearted nostalgia and existential dread,” we would have broken it that night.

As I began to slip into unconscious, my mind, heavy with thoughts of mortality and pregnant with images from a day working in my garden, produced a strangely upsetting image. I envisioned a spear of asparagus shooting up from the ground, time-lapse style. Something about it struck me as sinister and, like a shot of adrenaline, a wave of panic ran through my body. Then, as quick as it came on, the panic subsided and in its place was a visceral understanding of the nature of life and food.

The living feed off the dead and the dead feed the living. Period. This is the story of food. Regardless of our dietary habits, everything we consume was once alive and possessing of some form of consciousness. Plants turn their faces toward the sun and respond to music…and, once they’ve reached their physical peak, we mow them down and eat them. Yeast spend their short lives eating sugar, defecating and expelling gas (basically enacting the plot to every Eddie Murphy movie post 1996) and, through their sacrifice, give us wine, beer and bread. That murky mess at the bottom of your Hefeweizen? The scattered bodies of those who served.

As much as we’d like to think that vegetables sit around waiting to be eaten and that happy little pigs magically transform themselves into succulent BBQ by wearing sunglasses and playing blues guitar, that’s not the template we’ve been given. However regrettable, killing is essential to living, and presents us with a continuum where we as individuals and societies decide where to draw the line — vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, omnivore, cannibal, whatever.  (Of course, even from this broad perspective, the philosophy that justifies the rearing and killing of animals en masse in squalid factory farm conditions just to furnish each citizen with three to five servings of dirt-cheap meat per day seems, at best, unsustainable. Like some rickety new addition sloppily built onto the natural food chain.)

This all seems rather violent and inharmonious until you consider one factor: that those of us sitting at the top of the food chain will eventually nourish those on the bottom. Indeed, my remains will one day be feasted upon by worms and other insects, who will fertilize the soil with living bacteria who, in turn, will provide sustenance to that jerk of an asparagus spear.

Bon appetit...asshole.

Sure its halting and morbid but it’s also quite beautiful and offers a connection with natural world that’s all to easy to lose sight of these days.

Man, all this talk of mortality is making me hungry. Lets remedy that with some terrible food porn, shall we?

Two Grills, One Chop: The Internet’s Most Perplexing Food Porn

These days the internet is rife with captivating food images that run the gamut from edible high-art to lust/shame-inducing food-smut. But it’s the curious images below that have captured my heart above all others. Some are just plain revolting, while others make you wonder why anyone would take the time to photograph and upload something so completely ubiquitous. Something like…

“Chips AND salsa?!?! Dude, if you don’t take a picture of this, no one is gonna believe us.”

I like to call this dish “Millionaire’s Throw-Up.”

Aaand “Not-a-Millionaire’s Throw-Up.”

Often it’s the lighting that determines the difference between “food porn” and “food Faces of Death.”

This campy treat is called “The Retro Burger.” But here’s an interesting fact about the 1950s: Even though the average American believed that brown people were sub-human, that homosexuality was a disease and that smoking was good for you, they still were wise enough to know that topping a burger with mashed potatoes is a fucking terrible idea.

“You know sometimes, when I’m kicking back with a big glass of Costco brand Merlot on a Bud Light coaster, I just can’t help but think to myself  ‘What-Ever-My-Name-Is, you’ve done ALLLRIGHT!’”

“Tomato Gang Bang.”

This pic was tagged as “Four Way Chili.” The four ways being:

1. Absent

2. Forgotten

3. Imagined

4. Disguised as 27 lbs of shredded cheese

“The sushi chef must be like the Samuri. His knife is his sword. His cuts are swift yet precise, always with respect for his opponent, the noble fish. His focus, strong; but his heart, humble, he blah, blah, blah. BLAAAH!!! Just slap some mayo on it, put this toy on the plate, charge those fuckers $17 dollars and call it a day.”

Bullsh*t Beer Gimmicks Through the Ages

The Ancestor — Pawuel Kwak

Dating back to 1731, Pawuel Kwak is a Belgian amber ale whose signature glass is arguably the first recorded example of bullshit beer gimmickry. The design probably came about after market research found that “looking like a scientist” was the coolest thing one could do in smallpox-ravaged, 18th century Brussels.

After that, things fell pretty silent on bullshit beer gimmick front.

…and then…America happened.

The Bottom Bottle Opener — Miller High Life

I’m not gonna lie. Compared to all the gimmicks that came after it, this one actually seems rather useful. Plus the commercial does a brilliant job of capturing the spirit of the summer of ’87 — when goombas cooked eggs on the sidewalk and tuxedo-clad men patiently waited for buses.

Wide Mouth and Vented Wide Mouth Can — Coors Light

Drinking beer used to take forever! It was like there was some Soviet-era Minister of Lager Rationing coming between the can and your face. Downing an entire 12 pack by yourself could take up to an hour. Then, one day in the 1990s, Coors Light was like “Damnit, this is America!” and invented the wide mouth can. It is rumored that, for a fleeting moment during the prototype’s maiden pour, the pallid gray-green face of the Statue of Liberty lit up with a healthy, ruddy-cheeked complexion (like that scene where Joan Allen masturbates in movie Pleasantville). A decade or so later, Coors followed up with the Vented Wide Mouth Can, which used cutting-edge aerodynamic innovation to…do…something. Still, in comparison to its revolutionary predecessor, the new design seemed unremarkable, perhaps even a tad forced (like the scene where Joan Allen masturbates in the movie Joan Allen: Masturbates).

Present Day

The current renaissance in American craft beer production and consumption has led to a counter renaissance in bat-shit crazy gimmicks by the big boys desperate to recapture the market share they’ve lost. And since making beer that actually tastes good is time-consuming and expensive, and since Goliath didn’t beat David by learning how to be small and likeable (Goliath beat David, right?), here’s what they’re bringing to the table.

Cold Activated Bottle and Cold Activated Window Box — Coors Light

I want you meditate on how much money and how many man hours were spent on developing these products. The endless executive meetings, the conference calls with the branding agency, the numerous prototypes, the focus groups, the millions in marketing dollars. All to spare you the exhausting prospect of having to TOUCH SOMETHING WITH YOUR HAND to determine if it’s cold.

Taste Protector Lid — Miller Lite

You know you’re playing a weak hand when the biggest selling point for your product is that it has a lid. It’s innovations like this, as well as their patented “gravity-obeying hops,” that keep Miller Light a step ahead of all those other beers floating wildly throughout the cosmos.

Vortex Bottle — Miller Lite

Ok…so what are these “specially designed grooves” specially designed to do?

…Besides make you look like you’re giving brain to a smaller than average black dude wearing a clear, ribbed condom.

WHAT?!? THAT’S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!!!

My Bud Light — Bud Light

Here is a bottle you can write on because, according to this product’s press release, “Bud Light drinkers are always looking for fun, quirky ways to express themselves.”

Indeed.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear the phrase “Bud Light drinkers” I think of young poets furiously scribbling their tortured musings on whatever surface this bankrupt world will afford them…not these f*ckwads.

Sandwich Dipping Sauce + Bearded Man Desperate for Money and/or Attention = Ew

I can only guess as to what this ad for Quiznos is trying to plant in the consumer’s brain, but here’s what I took away from it:

1) Super-weird, esoteric humor (a la Mr. Show, Tim and Eric and, every so often, the last 10 minutes of SNL) is now deemed an acceptable tool for selling fast food.

2) This sandwich definitely has hair in it.

So, if those were your intentions, ad people (ridding our culture of the final flimsy barrier between the underground and the commercial, while ensuring us that the new Chicken-Bacon Dipper is loaded with bristly red beard hair) then allow me to congratulate you on a job well done!

As for all you comedic artists out there looking to do something irreverent and anti-mainstream, it may be time to dust off the old wacky suspenders and start telling jokes again.

Chef + Folded Arms = BADASS

Back when I was growing up, cooking wasn’t cool. We didn’t have the Anthony Bourdains, the Jaime Olivers or the Guy Fieris (so, I guess it wasn’t all that bleak). Cooking shows were the domain of housewives, embarrassing ethnic stereotypes and alleged pedophiles. And when you watched them, you did so with your grandmother and a quiet shame.

Then one day chefs learned how to fold their arms and the whole game changed. Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit to you a sample of some of my favorite chef pics WARRIOR PORTRAITS.

BAD. ASS.

 

Do you understand how much “Badass” it takes to pull this hat off.
I don’t care how many armpit hairs there are in the omelettes, I’d still eat here.

 

All the entrees at Chez Indie-as-Fuck are served on a limited edition Fugazi seven-inch.

 

In prison, a star on the right forearm means that you killed someone for saying you look like Phil Collins. The same thing on the left forearm means that you killed someone for saying you look like Bob Hoskins.

 

If anyone here is a badass please raise your hand…
Perfect, not a single one of you fell for my trick. Let’s proceed.

 

Hmm, this really is more of a wrist-grab than an arm-fold. Still, the knife is a nice touch. Well done, Chef Fred!

 

Oh my–a full cross plus knife!
Sorry Fred, the ante has been upped. Please pack your knives and go.

 

“Uh-oh–cameraman going in for close up!
M-must find way to work f-folded arms into head shot!…GOT IT!!!”

 

Exhibit A in support of the theory that links a chef’s badassedness to the proximity of their arms to each other.

 

Not sure what to make of this one:
The folded arms, smoke and lighting say “Welcome to hell,” but their facial expressions say “Welcome to Cheesecake Factory!”

 

Thumbs up??? Tiny shears??? You haven’t been paying attention at all, have you?
Next!

 

Weird. I love music and I love food, yet I hate absolutely everything about this.
NEXT!

 

“Hi there, friend! Come on into my salmon-colored kitchen and let me tell you all about these here grapes.” I don’t think so, buddy–NEXT!

 

NEXT!!!

“Oh, hello again. I was just about to sauce my venison when 20 knife-wielding maniacs attempted to murder me. Naturally, I turned them all suicidal with my very gaze.
Now, back to this venison!”

 

Though I have no way of telling if this dude has ANY cooking experience, I would still like to nominate him for The Next Iron Chef.