If your four year old will eat off the adult menu, then by god order off the adult menu, of feed them off your plate.
The problem is that lots of kids are picky eaters. The time to introduce them to new foods is when you’re at home. If my four year old isn’t going to eat sardines and pickled asparagus, she isn’t going to eat them. Then I’ll have a cranky hungry four year old at the restaurant. Maybe…give her some french fries to shut her up?
It’s absolutely true that the kids menu is bland familiar food. Pizza, hamburger, chicken strips, spaghetti, quesadilla, grilled cheese, mac and cheese, hot dog, and I think our list is done. And why? So that kids who won’t eat sophisticated food don’t have to starve while the adults enjoy their meal.
There might be a time and a place for “Eat what the family is serving or don’t, your call”. The best time and place for that is when the other patrons of the restaurant don’t have to listen to your kid sobbing for the next hour and a half. Making food into a power struggle is never pretty. Making your kids rejection of unfamiliar foods into a referendum on your parenting skills isn’t pretty either.
There’s a new fast food place in town called Top Dog. It’s our only dedicated hot dog joint. Been open less than a month, but I’m loving it.
They have a hotdog called The Elvis Dog. It has peanut butter, banana and cornflakes. The owner/manager told me he made it up because he wanted something crazy that he didn’t expect anyone to order. But now he says he’s ordering a lot of bananas because, especially late at night when the bars close, it’s become popular. It sounds awful to me, but to each their own.
Ive had the Chicago dog, the Sloppy Dog, and the (KC)Chiefs Dog. All with different toppings of course, and theyve all been good.
If you’re doing the hard shell taco thing at home put a little hot meat in the shells, then bake at a lowish (250-300) temperature for a few minutes, then top them off after that. You’ll be able to smell when the shells are cooking- don’t burn them, that’s easy to do. Using this method, the shells won’t crumble apart on you.
I think hard taco shells were created to introduce lazy gringos to Mexican food. The shell makes it easy to fill and it hold it’s shape, so if you put it down between bites it would not unroll and show the contents (which may be greasy and unappealing). One is made nowadays with a square bottom so it will stand upright on your plate while you fill it. I can see the argument for a satisfying crunch. Crumbling upon bite is still an issue, but at least they “look” good.
Soft shell (corn) tacos are superior in terms of flavor, texture, and convenience, but they also require skill - you have to pinch the two sides together at the top to prevent the contents from spilling out. These tend to be filled with fresh and appealing ingredients, so seeing the contents is a bonus. Also, soft corn shell tacos are smaller, so there will not be a need to put it down between bites - it is usually gone in 2-3 bites anyway. Flour tortillas are for burritos.
I confess I like Taco Bell’s Double Decker taco (supreme) - the one with a hard-shell inner taco wrapped in a flour tortilla with a thin layer of beans separating them. An abomination for sure, but a guilty pleasure, and wont crumble on impact.
Snerk. Five Guys on its best day isn’t even in this running. It’s like the pee-wee junior boxing championship winner against Mayweather or Tyson in his prime.
Five Guys is what poor, deluded, east-coasters who have never known any better think of as a “good burger,” and we just don’t have the heart to tell them they’re the anosmic Helen Kellers of burger aficionados.
To anyone who thinks this was even a contest, enjoy paying 3x as much for 1/10th the quality, I’ll be at In-n-Out having burgers the way Gordon Ramsey, Thomas Keller, Julia Child, David Chang, Anthony Bourdain, and god himself think burgers should be done.
Wait, no good burger is available on the east coast?
Just within a couple of miles of me there is Good Stuff Eatery, Five Guys, Shake Shack, Burger 7, Burger Tap & Shake, Ray’s Hellburger, BGR The Burger Joint,
Holy Cow, All About Burger, Elevation Burger, Ollie’s Trolley, Fuddruckers, and a whole bunch of places I’ve never tried. NONE of these places with locations on the east coast serve a decent burger competitive with In-N-Out? You really mean to assert that?
Agreed on the cornbread. Find yourself some bolted meal (Finer ground than standard corn meal) and make a proper cornbread or quit trying.
But you are dead wrong about the chicken. My Mother comes from a town called “Gay” Georgia. (Quotes because when pronounced properly it has about ten syllables, but they spell it with only three letters.) She doesn’t do many things right, but she makes up for them all with her fried chicken. The key is, you marinate the chicken first in dill pickle juice, and the in buttermilk. Dredge in a mixture of flour and herbs and fry.
Amen.
I always found that if Celtling had food that she liked in front of her, she was much more open to trying something new from my plate. If she was hungry and presented with something unfamiliar, panic set in and we’d get nowhere. YMMV as all kids are different, but it worked for us. She was four years old the first time she asked to order what I had last time instead of something from the kid’s menu. (It was Cioppino.)
And none of this “Raspberry” crap either. They never add any actual raspberries, so what are they even doing to it? Blech!
Duke’s or I eat it dry.
Unless it’s a Thanksgiving turkey sandwich. That is the only proper use for Miracle Whip.
It’s because they don’t cook the sweet potatoes long enough to caramelize. Sweet potatoes aren’t done when they get soft. They are done when they start blowing bubbles. Big, sweet, brown bubbles of sugary heaven.
Now, can we talk about crab cakes? It’s not a crabcake unless you put some mustard in it. If I can taste the mustard, you’ve put in too much. But without it they are just bland, mushy lumps of nothing at all.
And if you are going to put celery in, OK, but have the decency to pull out your potato peeler and peel the strings off first. Celery strings plus crab lumps equals about the most disgusting texture known to mankind.
And crabcakes should not taste like Old Bay. Old Bay seasoning is for boils, not cakes. The water soaks away the bitter elements and leaves behind the goodness. Don’t use it in anything else please.
You would be correct, at least in this country. Mexicans have been doing tacos dorados for centuries. But it was Glen Bell who introduced the hard shell taco to America when he opened the first Taco Tia back in the 50s in San Bernardino, CA. He then sold that chain and went on to bigger things by founding Taco Bell.
