The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Back to my favorite blogging subject: food!  During recent exploration, I have had some hits and some misses.

The Good:

Yes, the flower is real.

This rendition of Pad Thai was quite a standout.  Oysters, squid, and other seafood delights were nice, but the ability to construct my own perfect balance of egg and peanuts was great.  The flower was a nice touch too, although it led to my dinner group making fun of me.  I think it's sort of like at a bar when men aren't allowed to have pieces of fruit in their drinks.  Still, a very nice dinner with good Thai Iced Tea too.

The Bad:

"Texas Barbecue"

I knew it would be tough to find good Mexican and BBQ up north.  That's why I was excited when a place was recommended to me by people who said it was just like Texas!  Apparently they meant it looked the same as what is served in Texas.  Most places serving "barbecue" really serve something that looks like roast beef.

Dinosaur BBQ let me down.  It's fine.  In fact, it may be the best barbecue in NYC and it's edible.  However, for nearly $20 a box, it's not worth doing often.  Sadly, it's nothing like Texas.

Erin is not pleased by ominous rain clouds.

We ate our lunch out on the Hudson River, but it didn't help that it was chilly and about to rain.

The Ugly:

Not all food can be tasty.  I suppose without bad food, good food would simply be average food.  Still, some things should never be forced upon someone.

It looks interesting at least.

Erin asked me to bring home dinner, so when a food truck driver called out to me, I took notice.  They had a vegetarian bowl for her, so it seemed like a great idea.  A bowl full of white rice and vegetables is hard to mess up, right?

Wrong.  Would you expect this dish to be hot or cold?  Rice is normally served hot, but not here.  The vegetables are lukewarm and bathed in a fiery vinegar-chili sauce.  That might have been OK if cold ginger sauce wasn't also thrown in.  Oh, and why not add wasabi mayo and mix it in?

After dealing with the overwhelming amounts of mismatched sauces, you get to experience rancid vegetables.  I don't know what happened to these carrots, but they had been modified to taste sour.  The "pickle" on the right tasted unlike any pickle I have ever had.  Perhaps this cucumber was soaked in bleach for a few weeks to give it such a unique "flavor profile".

Erin made it through four or five bites before giving up.  I ate about half, but when I made it to the mystery meat at the bottom, I too gave up.  I rarely leave food on my plate, but my tongue wasn't pleased during this adventure and every bite was harder and harder to get down.

Erin came back with pizza from downstairs a few minutes later.

I give up.

It was pretty horrible, but without experiences like these, how do we set a baseline?  When everything you eat is good, you lose appreciation for truly great food.  It's times like these that you actually consider McDonald's as a restaurant instead of a bathroom pit stop on road trips.

I have officially crossed this strange pickled Mexican/Asian disaster off of my list.  Still, I suppose I should thank the food truck driver.  He has made me appreciate each and every one of my other meals just a little bit more.