rice king noodle house

go.

holy cow!

i discovered a very versatile condiment today: the chik-fil-a "chik-fil-a" sauce. i believe it is a honey mustard/bbq mix, heavy on the honey mustard side.

i put it up there with nick's house dressing. no joke.

ethical considerations: mountain west burrito

the other day a handful of us hit up mountain west burrito. myself, cass, wiems, gheybin, greg, other meg, and brit p all crowded around a table in a room adjacent to a convenience store (read: smokeshop & beer). for some reason the owner chose that location to open where other tiny resturants had either closed, fled, or bailed completely (lookin at you taco r.). the near steadfast rule in opening a resturant is to never open where another had just failed seems not to deter the owner (haven't quite gotten on first name basis, which everyone should at their fav food spots), who goes about happily greeting, serving and cleaning.

somehow i think he knows what he's done.

here's why:

first he's a good looking white dude, and very affable. the picky locals are drawn towards pretty white men. and he smiles at everyone. he oozes the good kind of confidence.

second, he seems quite business savvy. i've had a couple of conversations with him about previous endeavors and he's helped start and may still be involved with a few similar operations, didn't get that far in convo with him. he's opened places like these in other college towns and he seems to be banking on their model in provo. not such a bad idea.

third, he's smart enough to buy locally, and organic when available, another selling point to the picky locals, not because its more healthy, but because its a buzz they can all understand. either way, we all win, because: his food is killer. it definitely is not autentico mexicano. but it is so good. which brings me to my last point: the staff.

the food at this joint is good because his staff respect and appreciate that he respects them. i don't know if i've ever seen an owner treat his guys with such dignity. the first time me and cassie ever tried him out he was sitting out in the dining room with one of his guys playing dominoes. i'll never forget it. the owner took our order while the other guy made his last move before he got our food ready. to see latino worker treated as a person and not a commodity gives me just the tiniest bit of faith in people. it's really all i need to help keep this place going.

cornel west made this statement:

"A Leftist looks at the world through the lenses of those who are dominated, subjugated, devalued, demeaned and marginalized...."

when i first read it i felt its meaning throughout my body. whether you subscribe to leftism or not, we can find places run by businessmen who believe in helping the marginalized maintain dignity as people, and we should support them.

hey folks, it's been a while.

i noticed the last post was part one of my tour "diary". fail. i don't even remember the rest of tour, so suffice it to say i had good food in portland.

for a second i thought blogger was gonna delete all my stuff because some "thing" changed with the internet and i don't know what goes on inside the internet so i don't know how to describe it. but i guess everything is cool.

the last 6-7 months or so've been pretty strange/rough.

i don't really wanna talk about it. some ups, lotsa downs, lotsa wasted time and money.

i got a new job. so i don't work at nicolitalia any longer. i barely made it through that. graywhale is my new home. i like my new job. i like my co-workers. i like my superiors. i wish it wasn't at the mall.

which brings up my first point:

i have a love/hate relationship with mall food. you can only get chick-fil-a at the mall here. they have pretty good biscuits and gravy. iceberg makes an "ok" burger (the buffalo chips are worth it). free refills all day. i can really only stomach sbarro's cheese slice. charleys subs are very mediocre. i will not pay $2.39 for a hot dog at orange julius. when the chinese food is fresh it is killer. mixed veggies 4 lyfe.

now on to my second point:

i don't really get out much anymore. except to go to petes. pete's and el salvadoran are about the only 2 places i want to eat any more. usually i go to pete's.

which brings me to my third point:

i have my own table at pete's lunch. he called me back into the inner sanctum and asked me what my last name was. had me write it down. next time i came in, there it was. come sit with me at my table sometime.

the 4th and maybe last thing i wanna say:

self loathing is rampant in provo. maybe the world. i can only see its effects in provo. i see it mostly in women, probably due in large part to the self loathing in men, projected onto the women they're around. 2 things can save us. food and music. i think long and hard on these two things on a very frequent basis. the histories of the worlds cultures can largely be documented by their food, their wars, and their cultural output, but not how they treat women.

ok, the 5th:

why the fuck do i know so many women who are scared to eat? i think i know. you know too. if you don't know, it's likely you're a part of the problem, so please stop.

sorry to get serious. i'm meeting my buddy mel for pete's soon. i'm looking towards a new phase in my life and i love you all.

Tour Diarrheas part 1

just kidding. actually i'm not. so broken spells went on tour, from june 19 til the 29th. we played in CO/NM/AZ/CA/OR/ID. i think we killed it just about every night, except in tuscon which doesn't matter, and our show fell through the cracks of the pot addled minds of our friends in seattle. from the beginning i had great plans for this tour, at least in terms of food. like, i got started before we even left. chazzy needed a burrito and we hit up del taco on the way out of town, i got a breakfast burrito and a milkshake. seemed like a great idea. it goes without saying that deltaco is very very mediocre. it kept me good until we hit green river, and picked up maria and hayley who work at epicenter. on the way to grand junction they kept talking about how much they wanted to stop at chick-fil-a in GJ. i had no problems with this. so we finally get to GJ and stop in at the c-f-a to grab a bite. no one else in the band was that hungry, and to be honest, i wasn't so hungry myself, but couldn't resist. so i got a chicken sandwich, those waffle fries and another milkshake. i'm not sure what i did to piss him off, but fecelious, the great god of feces decided to take vengeance upon my asshole. and of course everyone had to make fun of me for taking such a long dump, but i couldn't help it, it wouldn't stop. until it did, and then i felt horrible. ususally after such a huge purge i feel great, lighter on my feet, etc. but not this time. we made our way over to the house where we were playing and a buncha kids were already there partying and whatnot. like 5 minutes after we got there, hayley and maria both were starting to get sick. i dunno what c-f-a did to us, but it was not nice. i didn't think i was gonna be able to play the show, like i sat down in the back of the living room and almost passed out a few times. i tried to drink a buncha water, but nothing helped. sure enough, though, as soon as we took the "stage" i started feeling better and somehow my bowels were plugged by the power of rocknroll.

doughnuts

i love doughnuts. always have. when i was a kid we'd go to howards donuts on summer avenue in memphis, best smelling donut shop on earth. memphis has tons of doughnut shops. right up there with pawn shops, churches and hot wing joints. sadly i no longer live in memphis, and the clowns in UT don't understand the idea and the profitability of donut shops. someday if i can get a sugar daddy or wealthy benefactor i'm gonna open my own. for now though, i get my donuts at the fresh market (ex-albertsons). i usually stop in before work and grab a few plain glazed and a blueberry cake donut. i've realized this is beneficial in a few ways. 1. i am eating breakfst. 2. they're suprsingly very good doughnuts. 3. nicola dellacioppa loves donuts too, and now we all eat donuts at work and it puts nick in a good mood. you can't go wrong when you put your boss in a good mood first thing in the morning, plus he usually chips in a buck or two. eat more donuts folks.

bryan gomm

i'm about to go get some pupusas at el salvadoran, but before i got, bookmark this new blog i'm doing, its as many of the flyers and drawings i can find/get a hold of by bryan gomm.
http://party-time.posterous.com/

dig it!