by printersdevil78 » Sat Jun 30, 2012 7:13 pm
After a few months’ hiatus, the Roadfood thread returns! But this time, the reason for the delay is more than just my usual busy-ness. In late January, I started a major diet and, save for a few weekend trips, vacations and special occasions, I really haven’t gone to many Roadfood-style places. In fact, with the exception of my weekly bar trivia night and a few work-related events, I really haven’t dined out much at all this year.
The good news is, a couple months ago, Kelly decided to make it a “family diet,” and in the past couple months, she and Lauryn have lost weight, as well. Then a few of our friends joined in… so we have kind of a “Biggest Loser” thing going on.
That said, I do have some fun places to report on… and they’re 100 percent scrapple-free! Enjoy!
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- I’m not sure how this place has escaped the Roadfood thread thus far, but Thrasher’s French Fries is an Ocean City, MD, tradition dating back to the 1920s. This was the “crowd” when I stopped by during a visit to the boardwalk the first week of January to take a photo to enter into one of Big Mike’s contests. In the summer, the line can stretch for what seems like a mile. However, there is a dirty little secret: Besides the main location pictured here, there are other Thrasher’s locations further down the boardwalk that almost never have lines… and the fries there are just as good, no matter what anyone tells you.
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- This is a “small” (sizes go all the way up to a popcorn-style bucket) with sea salt and vinegar, the way God intended Thrasher’s fries to be eaten! The only items served besides fries are Pepsi and Diet Pepsi, poured into cups from two-liter bottles. And don’t even think about asking for ketchup. It’s not available at Thrasher’s, and the Boog’s Barbecue restaurant next door (owned by and named for Baltimore Orioles Hall-of-Famer John “Boog” Powell) has signs sternly warning patrons that its ketchup is not to be used on Thrasher’s fries… or else.
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- In early March, Lauryn started talking about how much she wanted to visit New York. I have no idea what prompted this sudden urge to see the Big Apple, but I suspect it was because the main characters from “iCarly” or “Big Time Rush” or “Victorious” or some other interchangeable show probably went there. Kelly and I started talking about a visit… then the next day at work, a friend of mine who runs bus trips told me she still had tickets available for her next trip to New York a few weeks later if I knew anyone who was interested. It was kismet! Kelly wanted to spend the day taking Lauryn shopping in the Times Square area, and I reluctantly agreed… provided I got to choose the restaurants. First up: John’s Pizzeria.
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- I came thisclose to changing my mind once I realized that Shake Shack was right across the street (and the grill smell coming from there was amazing), but since I had been denied a chance to visit John’s once before during a group holiday trip when the wait proved to be too long, I had incentive to see what I had missed out on. Next time I’ll visit Shake Shack to see what I missed out on this time!
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- How many pizza joints have you been to with a ceiling like this? This particular branch of John’s (with several locations throughout the city) was built inside a defunct church!
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- The view from our table. Not too shabby!
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- Stained glass windows on the other side.
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- But forget about the view… this is where the magic happens! On Scott’s Pizza Tour last year, I learned that the best pizzas come from coal-fired ovens like this.
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- Lauryn had a bad experience with pizza last year (she will forever associate tomato sauce with the flu), so she doesn’t particularly care for it anymore. However, she is a garlic bread fiend. Personally, I thought John’s’ variety was a little bland, but she enjoyed it, which is what counts.
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- Ladies and gentlemen, this pepperoni-sausage-garlic-cheese, coal-fired, thin-crust pizza from John’s is quite probably the best pizza I have eaten thus far in my life. Kelly said the same thing… and we’ve eaten a <i>lot</i> of pizza! Maybe it’s because it was the first “junk” food I’d had in more than two months at that point. Maybe it really was that good. I don’t know. But to this day, I still have dreams about that wonderful pie.
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- Originally, I wanted to go to the Carnegie Deli for dinner. However, in researching the trip, Kelly decided it was too far to walk. Plus, she really hates crowded, chaotic places, and neither of us was sure how well Lauryn would do in that type of atmosphere after getting up at 4 a.m. and spending the day walking several miles through New York. I wasn’t sure how long our wait would be, and I read a lot of mixed reviews online. Ultimately, we decided it would be best to skip it this time and try something else. When I read about Junior’s, it sounded like the perfect substitution.
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- How can you have a Brooklyn-themed restaurant without featuring Ebbets Field?
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- “Forget Ebbets Field… where’s the food?”
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- Our meal began with complimentary sour pickles, beets and coleslaw.
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- I had read good things about the matzo ball soup, so Kelly and I each got a bowl. They were huge! I really wish we had just got one to split; it was a meal unto itself.
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- I got the half corned beef, half pastrami sandwich. It looks good here… but in actuality, it was pretty dry. I’ve had better.
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- Kelly went for the pastrami burger with fries and onion r.ings, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Lauryn got the same thing, only without the pastrami and r.ings.
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- The onion r.ings were the size of doughnuts! That’s not an exaggeration.
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- Full as we were, we weren’t about to leave without sampling a slice of Junior’s’ famous cheesecake. They’re even sold on QVC, according to my mother. We got a piece to split three ways.
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- Om nom nom!
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- At the Toys “R” Us in Times Square, I picked up some bacon-flavored jellybeans and cheese-flavored fried worms. The worms tasted like… nothing, really. The jellybeans, on the other hand, were absolutely horrible! Kelly got mad at me after she ate one on the way home. I still have most of them left… though I did palm some off to the kids who attended Lauryn’s birthday party last month (they got mad at me, too).
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- In April, my friend from whom we bought the New York tickets called and let me know she had a few empty seats left on her bus trip to the 100th anniversary of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., that she was willing to give away, lest they be wasted. Lauryn was spending her spring break with her father in Kentucky, and Kelly wasn’t really interested, so I went solo. After the massive parade, I made my way to the Sakura Matsuri street festival. I was looking forward to sampling authentic Japanese cuisine…
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- …like Big Macs!
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- Um… let’s go with whatever this guy is making instead.
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- The lines for the Japanese food vendors were insane and not even remotely organized. You would stand in one line for 20 minutes only to find out it wasn’t a line at all, but a dead end. In the end, it was more of a “next person who shouts their order is the next person who gets waited on” deal.
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- This pork bun was OK. Not really worth waiting 45 minutes for, but… OK.
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- I had better luck at the pre-packaged, grab-and-go booths. I’m not really sure what these things were, but they were incredible! Far and away the best food I had at the festival.
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- Unfortunately, I pushed my luck too far. As a fan of “Lost,” I certainly wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to try an actual fish biscuit! It was filled with bean paste, and didn’t have much taste. I’m not sure what those things next to it were called, but they were kind of like a dense marshmallow-flavored dough coated in chunky Karo syrup, if that even makes sense. By the time I finished all three skewers, I felt pretty sick.
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- That was the last “cheat” day until Memorial Day weekend, when I made a special trip to Bethlehem, PA, to see Mr. Ho’s Orchestrotica perform during “Luau at Levitt” at the Levitt Pavilion at the SteelStacks arts and entertainment complex.
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- This was the snack bar inside. Apparently the Just Born candy company, maker of Peeps and Mike and Ikes, is a big sponsor.
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- These were the benches!
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- I opted for the outdoor catering, which was a bit more luau-themed!
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- Roast pig sandwich with mango chutney (pineapple salsa also available), taro chips (listed as “homemade,” though they obviously weren’t) and a mai tai… now that’s living!
That’s all for this installment. Stay tuned for more!
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