Jimmy Buffet - Cheeseburger in Paradise

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Monday - 7/28/08
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ABERDEEN, MARYLAND

the Official Hotel and Restaurant Critiquing

Welcome to Aberdeen Maryland. An “All America” City where the big goings-on in town are leaving off the “n”, visiting the Post Office, Library, and performing destructive testing on various military vehicles and apparatus.

Let’s begin.

While I’m down in Aberdeen Maryland for work for the 27^th time in 4 weeks (slight exaggeration) I have stayed at numerous hotels and eaten at many a fine, fine eating establishment both by myself and with various co-workers. When I travel alone I tend to be frugal and usually end up buying $1.25 frozen dinners in contrast to finding the most outlandish meal ever gorged each night when my co-workers are town…Trying to outdo each other in an extreme gut bashing on the rocky road to chocolate covered arterial sclerosis. We’ll begin at the bottom with King’s Chinese Grub in a bucket.

This Wang-Fong operation stinks to high heaven, wallowing in an MSG karate cloud 14 miles thick. The floors are dirty, the bathroom is a discrusting mess, and they don’t give you a napkin with your slopped together wanna-meal unless you grovel on the floor for 10 minutes begging for it. They had a fly-infested buffet that looked like it had been carted up from next to the dumpster out back from the last Chinese place in the same location that had gone out of business 2 weeks Pryor, Richard, the waiter, was rude, the forks were quite plastic, and they had that yellow rice. And to make matters worse they had peas in that yellow rice. Man that irritates me…peas in the rice. What could you possibly be thinking with that?? Peas DO NOT belong in a chinaman’s rice under any circumstances you nincompoops. Carrots are bad enough. Now I have nothing against carrots, and hopefully they have nothing against me, but peas…man oh man I don’t like them Sam I am. Now it’s not that I don’t like peas, which I don’t, it’s just a texture thing as with carrots, which I do like. When you plop a mouthful of rice, you don’t want little green balls rolling around amongst the roughage. Well maybe you do, but I don’t. I imagine it’s the texture thing, which is what triggers my disdain for such circumstances. In my opinion, peas in the rice is worse than the anti-climatic event de’ la Chinese which entails those fortune cookies that have that citrusy taste to them. Do you ever get those? Who am I talking to? The fortune cookies that taste almost like ice cream cones minus the ice cream, just the cone, are far superior. Alright, I’ll try to contain my oppression. Let’s just say that when I went to King’s Café I opted to eat the Styrofoam container just to avoid the unsavory misery of the anti-food within. Oh yeah, and their fortune cookies were citrusy.

Moving up a crotch we have Bob Evans.

(Forgive me, I didn’t think to take a picture of the actual
Aberdeen Bob Evans as I was trying to forget the incident)

Although the Strawberry lemonade was semi-god, the country fried steak I ordered was a lardy and tardy stomach bombardment of the most outrageous oncoming projectile. The meal was slapped together hurriedly as if it were scraped off the road, and steven stills took 45 minutes to arrive at my unwary pallet. I bit into the gashed potatoes with horror as I realized that they didn’t taste very good. That was bit bland. Not the potatoes, but my description of them. Mind you the potatoes were bland too. Moving on, the rolls were ok, if you were scrimmaging up some hockey, as they would have made delightful pale-ish hockey pucks. Evans still Bob, it was a disaster. The swill I downed would have frowned a clown and the lamb came bounding after. The gravy Smothern fried corporate home cookin’ on-top was a sludgy lamenting in itself. My heart will never recover from the gurgling mass of lard in my chest pains. Comin’ atcha’ from Aberdeen, MD… MD as in Medical Doctor of the coronary specialist type. There was something else on the plate, what was it, I don’t know… No... It’s not that I can’t remember, I actually don’t know what it was. Do you know what it was Nancy? It was a jiggling Hibberty mass on the side of my plate untouched and unrevered. It was unidentifiable. The mysterious side of sides if you will, won’t, and I don’t recommend it. For dessert I had two leave.

Next on the list is the pet food aisle

I’m jesting of course

For the most part

Me-ow

A totem pole notch higher we have the Indian restaurant on the corner.

Again I’m jesting, I didn’t eat at any Indian restaurants

We have McDonald’s which is always low down on the down low of my vastly opinionated

McDonald’s is a 2 minute waddle from my hotel which probably isn’t a good thing.

Now we all know about McDonald’s. Their wanna-beef corporate, cookie cutter butchering, burger flipping-you-off-through-the-drive-thru the fence mega chain-link is recognized by every man, woman, child, culture, species, genre and more beef on the spinning world than you can milk shake an English chip at so I won’t need to go into any of that. I’ll half to halve a separate sectional blogging altogether for them.

Let me interrupt myself and say there are a plethora of siren clad vehicles whizzing by all the time here. And for what reason? There’s nothing going on in this town…

Back to our author. Our next tongue bashing occurs at Wendy’s.
I never really liked Wendy’s. Until they introduced the BACONATOR. This is an actual foodish menu item for those of you with your doubts. The Baconator. What message is this sending today’s youth about the gutty problem of rampant obesity in this country? Have some bacon with your bacon sir. It’ll cure what ails you, or ail what cures you more like.

Four full pounds of bacon in every bun!

They’re actually proud of this.

the Baconator

Hold on, there’s something lodged in my heart

ouch.

Another thing, the fries at Wendy’sÒ always seem to be limp. I have a theory on this. See if you agree with me hypothesis, oh my. They cut their fries much too thick. This allows for maximum pooling of fatty liquids within the fry (or “Chip” if you are reading this in England, taking an additional 6 sick days off after coming back from 6 months of disability from eating the infamous and chest choking English versioned QUEEN-BACONATOR) This incessant lard pooling causes the fry to limp over like the somewhat the opposite of if you experience an erection lasting more than four hours contact your physician immediately. The fry just can’t withstand the goop within, and succumbs to gravity and evaporative cooling in thy opinion. The fries at McDonalds are a full ¼ inch thinner, and they don’t seem to have a problem. Except being horribly bad for the human body. Maybe I’m wrong about Greg’s Wendy’s fry theory but I don’t think so. Sigh, I miss George Carlin.

Onward, upward and over
the rainbow to the Japan House

The Japan house was over the hump of awful restaurantalia, and on the slightly upscale-down side thank goodness gracious. The sushi was a bit Sugaree according to one co-worker named Jerry G. I myself hate sushi. I’m not afraid to admit it. Why would you plop a raw dead sea creature in your mouth and say “whee”. I say gag me with a chicken finger. Those are much better or for worse for you if you’re going to go with oriental tidbits, or Asain-a-meal-icons. I had the General Gau, Tso, Ho, Lo, Moe, Larry and Curly fries meal with the traditional broccolesque undergarnish. That’s another thing I hate…Broccoli. Just the sound of it…Brocolli… It seems to shout “keep away!” at you in lowercase letters. This particular General So-So’s chicken was pretty Gau-d. But the filthy floormat of broccolitis underneath was gi-normous. I needed hedge clippers if not a Dear John Deere lettered multi-tractor to drive-thru it to get to the chicken generally, Gau.  Orange chicken is pretty much the same isn’t it…And sesame chicken is also the same as the other two, but with a few cents of sesame seeds sprinkled on top. I see right through your little multi-chicken meals plot Mr. & Mrs. Wong Dong. Back to broccoli- Why is this mutation of flora considered a food? Do you know what’s the worst? Old broccoli. This stuff erupts with a volcanically profane pungency when it spoils. That’s all I can think of when I see, hear, or feel broccoli nearby. I can’t even imagine canned broccoli. Just shoot me where I stand.

Let’s take a quick breather and a stomach pumping from the restaurant review

Ok, that’ll do.

Upward still we have the Hunan Chinese lunch Buffet.

Now my coworkers and I are in disagreement on this, although we try to agree on most everything else. One guy says it’s not that great, I say it’s pretty good, especially for the price, and yet another guy is on the fence telling me he likes it and telling the other guy he doesn’t like it that favor grabbing brown-noser of him. In my erroneous opinion this place isn’t half bad. The entire lunch buffet costs $5.95. And that’s all you can eat and/or stomach within the allotted 15 minute parking as indicated by the sign. That’s where they get you. You have to run outside when the cops come to tow your vehicle. That’s it, buffet time over. They probably have a racket going with the local town police and towing company. Even with the onslaught of parking tickets, in my erogenous opinion that’s a killer deal.

Killer deal - n.- A bargain offered at an almost irresistible decimal place

They had General Cows non-beef chicken as well, but without the broccolites. Maybe that’s why I liked it. That and the price tag. You know what’s funny? oh nevermind. Along with a steam tray full of General Sow’s non-porked chicken they had chicken fingers, fried chicken, chicken on a stick, chicken chow mein, chicken dumplings, and a live chicken running around the place at full speed. He was in fact being chased by a deranged chinaman with a machete. They also had the ice cream cone-ish tasting fortune cookies, which won them extra bonus points and a free Chinese guy. The fortunes inside were guaranteed to come true as well. At least I hope so. This is the one I got

Boy I hope that comes true! lol

You do realize I still hate that “lol” thing right? I guess anything mainstream I pretty much don’t like. Especially Gwen Stefani. And I don’t own an iPod. By the way, an iPod is an MP3 player. An MP3 player is not an iPod. This sort of thing is part of what ails me about mainstream items if not society in general (Gau). For years I tried to convince people to buy MP3 players, that they were the way to go if you want to listen to music, only to have them stare at me like a dear John in the headlights. It wasn’t until AppleÒ stole, bundled, promoted, then ultimately sold the idea of what an MP3 player actually was, as an iPod, did the idea actually catch on. C’mon people, are you that manipulable? I believe you are. The rest of the buffet was alright, and nearly half the selections were edible. And no peas in the rice…. Man that irritates me…peas in the rice. What could you possibly be thinking with that?? Peas DO NOT belong in a chinaman’s rice under any circumstances you nincompoops. Carrots are bad enough. Now I have nothing against carrots, and hopefully they have nothing against me, but peas…man oh man I don’t like them Sam I am.

Rocketing skyward toward the top of the list and the onset of my
carpal tunnel chicken finger poking outbursts we have Taco Bell.

Mexicana indegestiana as I’d like to call it. They did have a good deal going though. Three limp, lifeless, barely meated tacos wrapped in a slathering of waxy paper with corporate orange-u-tang colored cheese and maybe some lettuce pray, dear heavenly father, not the salmonella ridden tomatoes on that please. The only problem is that Taco Bell is the nearest fast food junkery to the Army base next door, and 10,000 screaming fans leaving for lunch each day seem do divulge on the place like much needed locusts. Driving thru and thru the worst pileup ever on a Tuesday afternoon at 11:45. My writing seems to have taken on a life of it’s own so I will now tranquilize it.

Little Caesars is next on our list

I can’t wholly complain about this place but I still will. They had warm, tasty pizza pizza waiting for me on demand for five bucks for a large cheese or pepperoni.

Hey look I didn’t complain! :)

the tranquilizers seemed to have done their job

The Golden Corral

(Again, forgive me for not having an actual picture of the Aberdeen Golden Corral but I couldn’t pick myself up off the ground after the colossal stomach raid preformed at their oversized tables) To show you what I mean, below is a partial list of their buffet items-

Asian Pork Roast
Awesome Pot Roast
Barbecue Chicken (Leg Quarter)
Barbeque Pork
Barbeque Pork Spareribs
Bourbon Street Chicken
Broccoli & Rice (yuk)
Brown Gravy
Buttered Noodles
Chicken & Pastry Noodles
Chicken Breast Fillet, Marinated
Chicken Tenders
Country Fried Steak
Creamy Chicken & Pasta
Fresh Fried Chicken (Leg/Thigh)
Grilled Pork Chop or Loin Slices
Grilled Pork Chops (with bone)
Ham (Pit Style,Smoked)
Macaroni & Beef
Macaroni & Cheese
Mashed Potatoes(Scratch and sniff)
Meatloaf
Pizza
More Pizza
Even more Pizza
Way too much Pizza
Pork Roast
Pork Steaks
Potato Casserole
Poultry Gravy
Roast Beef
Roasted Herb Pork Chop
Rotisserie Chicken (Breast/Wing)
Sirloin Steak
Spaghetti Pasta
Spaghetti Sauce
Steakburgers
Tamales, Beef
Tortillas
Turkey Breast w/ Wing
White Rice without the broccolettes

As you can see they are only missing the letters D, E, I, J, K, L, N, O, U, V, and Z from the alphabetical list above. Might I suggest-

Dounuts n’ Dip
Eggs
Iceberg Lettuce
Jams and Jellies
Knockwurst
Lasagna
Notting-Ham
Omelets
Unidentifiable sides
Vittles
and Zucchini?

Oh wait, most of that stuff is on the breakfast buffet.

 No wonder this country is on it’s way to a good ole’ stomach stapling

What Turkeys we are

I always wanted to do that

At least we have some pretty hot Turkeys over here too

Sorry, that was a little disturbing

Shame on you, Google image search

lol!

Ugh…

onto

Mamie’s Café

Ok now were getting to the good stuff food stuffs. The place dubbed “Mamie’s” between the two cars was a top notch joint as far as New York style deli’s moved south a bit to fill the little niche for such eateries goes. Did that make sense? I think so. And on and on we go. Mamie’s was frequented twice by myself with various co-workers. The first time I had the Open faced turkey sandwich, and the second time I don’t recall what I had. It’ll come to me. A groveling co-worker of mine had a sandwich of some sort that he had that he enjoyed quite thoroughly. The prices were reasonable, although I don’t remember what they are, and I’m unsure and pretty sure that the cuisine was thoroughly edible which is a stretch for some other restrauntrailial divages in the immediate area but I can’t be certain of that.

The Olive Tree

Thank you Google image search.

The only picture I managed to take was of the back of the Olive Tree

(not the Olive Garden mind you)

I did try to get a shot as I was driving by

But it didn’t come out that great. The truck was obscuring the sign

I tried again

But another truck was in the scene

Why am I telling you all this?

The Olive tree, The olive tree, spillin’ sauce all over me.

Due to the lengthy nature of this here blogging I will break the restaurant and hotel blog into two parts, or chapters, if I could be so self ingratiating. Part two’s hotel blogging will occur shortly. Incidentally if you have any comments, suggestions, or retaliations please, please send them, to me at vsoguy@gmail.com
Thanks for your time.

End Part 1