McDonald’s at McRib time. 99.9% of the year I don’t give them a second thought but as soon as they drag out that processed, rib-shaped, pressed meat BBQ slug in a bun back out from behind the fryer of our collective consciousness, and sprinkle some onions on it, I’m there.
@GetClosure@Targaryen When this was RE-introduced, wasn’t it a throwback to something they had long ago – I’m thinking around 1980? Anyone know. (oh, wait, there’s an internetz I can use, but I figure some of you may have more fun digging it up. And it’s lunchtime and I’ll get too hungry if think about it too much.)
@pmarin It may very well be. I do remember they promoted it alongside the Flintstones live-action movie with John Goodman in it. That was out in 1994 I believe?
@blaineg@GetClosure@pmarin@Targaryen They do the same thing to beef, press it into a patty, slap it on a fancy bun & everyone lines up to pay $20+ for it in pretentious places like gastro pubs.
@GetClosure I absolutely go bonkers for a McRib. My husband swears they put McCrack in it to get people hooked. I recently found out that Germany has McRib in some McDonalds year round! I could certainly grow to love that!
For me, it’s probably Taco Bell and Panda Express. They tend to be places I want to go to, and then feel some level of shame or embarrassment about eating.
But. I too enjoy the McRib. Even though it sucks every time.
@ChadP For me it’s the knowledge that I can find better and similarly priced tacos or Chinese food at any local spot but the TB and the Panda just hits different.
@ChadP Panda is insanely popular with pretty much everyone. Its like the standard American Chinese food. Also, ain’t no way a local taco place is matching TBs prices. Those $5 boxes are a great deal.
@ChadP@Leftoverburrito pretty much any more authentic “Mexican food” place or truck is about $10 minimum now. And I don’t mean sit-down restaurants, just grab-and-go for $10 + tip.
Cheesecake Factory. Specifically, the avocado egg rolls. Though I actually have not been in a couple years, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.
@dave We had a Cheesecake Factory but it closed. We also had Chili’s and Olive Garden and they left town. People are snobby about chains but really, sometimes they’re good enough and affordable! Too many expensive trendy places everywhere now.
@dave@Kyeh We’ve still got all three of those, but what we seem to have lost is Bennigan’s. The closest is in Matamoros, just across the border past Brownsville. And TGI Friday may still be here, but it isn’t what it once was. Neither is Chili’s, to be honest.
Oh I DREAM of their too-salty fish planks and dubious coleslaw. I’m pretty sure no restaurant that fries up and serves fish in less than 2 minutes is a safe place to eat, but I don’t care.
Give me those sweet sweet hush puppies and packaged malt vinegar any day
@mimikyu This is it right here. It used to be a campy fun place. Now they’re cleaner and more like any standard fast food joint, but the product is just as sketchy. Still though, just give me a box of the crispy bits and I’m good to go.
@ExtraMedium Those crispy bits are like GOLD in our household. All 6 of the four legged pets swarm us whenever we buy food from there. It’s a mad house
@mimikyu@ExtraMedium Couldn’t imagine growing up in a world where I didn’t know what “crispy bits” were or that “hushpuppies” weren’t just a shoe style and sold by the dozen. For a price even a couch-surfing street punk couldn’t pass up before they went to IHOP for the cheap coffee.
Cici’s. I know it’s mediocre, but mediocre pizza is still pizza. The smell, the arcade, the sticky floors all bring be back to a simpler time. and it’s cheap.
@Leftoverburrito And if you ask them, they’ll make you an “Atkins pizza” which is sauce, cheese and toppings on a sheet of aluminum foil; it’s baked for a little less time than one with a crust would need.
@Leftoverburrito@werehatrack That’s true that Cici’s will make you about anything that you want and even deliver it to your table verses putting it on the buffet. A bit of trivia, Cici’s was founded in Plano, TX. I haven’t been there in ages but Cici’s #1 is still open on the corner of Spring Creek and Alma Roads.
No embarrassment here that I like the Ikea restaurant. Cafeteria style eating, but the prices reflect that and given I have food allergies, I know that they have safe choices.
Not the only retailer to have offered a restaurant. Old timers probably remember the K-Cafe.
@ironcheftoni@narfcake I think it’s kind of the other way around - restaurant meals used to include sides and you’d pay more if you ordered things “a la carte;” then McDonald’s and the other fast food joints normalized buying each item separately. I think.
@narfcake I love the Ikea cafe!! And I BARELY remmeber the Kmart cafe. My grandma (passed when I was 6) loved it and she and I would go there anytime my mom wanted to shop at the big, red K
Not really a place I’m embarrassed about, but we stop by Chik-Fil-A a lot on the way home from an event. I found a connection with ice chips in the hospital during my thing that I went through, and Chik-Fil-A has the same or similar ice. When I go through the drive through and order stuff for my girls, I always order a large Coke, extra ice, and no Coke. Then I go home and eat ice with my hands. I’m a monster.
@capnjb May I recommend an Opal Ice machine, bit on the pricey side, but you can combine gifts like a birthday/Christmas gift for that year….1000% worth it. Just don’t let you r neighbors know you have it…
@capnjb@wifeduck Second the Opal. I bought one last year and it’s been fantastic. (Also, either connect it to a water line or get the extra gallon tank… it goes through water pretty quickly… or maybe it’s that we go through ice pretty quickly.)
There used to be a greasy-spoon diner near here whose lunch specials were the kind of traditional “a little lunch” you’d get in Minnesota. The chalkboard menu occasionally listed “Hot Dish”. Most of the folks eating there were anything but embarrassed, but I knew quite a few people who would have been, and my X2 worked with a bunch of them. As for me, it was good grub at a reasonable price. And you never had to deal with some jerk in a Mercedes taking up two parking spaces to protect his Precious.
Subway. I literally, just order one thing from there every time. The oven-roasted chicken sandwich. I think it’s been discontinued…but yeah. Not proud of enjoying that one.
@capnjb@riskybryzness Except the “fresh baked” bread – remember that thing where in England their food was taxed higher because there was so much sugar in the bread that it was classified as a “cake” and therefore a pastry item, not a wholesome “food.”
@riskybryzness I know the flatbread is yoga pad, but I always gotta get a tuna sandwich with cheese, pickles, and mustard, 10/10, my favorite meal when I was working on the college newspaper
In any case, a number of Subway shops have closed around my area. They opened a lot in the past decades because of their low franchise fees, but all that meant was the customer base was spread out wide, and many owners got low to no return on their investments.
@GetClosure@Kyeh Worst and best thing about Golden Corral was that as you traveled around the country, the reconstituted frozen and canned food products were identical. The same cans of mixed vegetables, frozen fish and chicken products. Looking back I think it must have been pretty disgusting.
@GetClosure@pmarin “Was?” Have they gotten better? There are still plenty of Golden Corrals nearby here but I find them too expensive for just a lazy dinner and I don’t eat enough at one sitting to make it worthwhile.
If I want to pay a lot to overeat I’d rather go to one if those Brazilian steakhouses. I’ve only been to one, in Salt Lake City, and it was GOOD!
Panera and Bahama Breeze. I love the Bahama Breeze pineapple bowl with jerk chicken. The Chocolate Island and Pineapple Cheesecake Empanadas for dessert are yummy too.
@ChadP and I are in agreement with Taco Bell. My guiltiest pleasure. I typically only eat it when my Husbands out of town or at work because he makes so much fun of me for eating there. Old habits die hard. Sometimes I’ll go a year without it, sometimes a couple months.
Virg’s Fish & Chips, about 30th South on State Street in Salt Lake.
Not only was the place tiny, disgusting, and greasy, I’m sure it met no building codes anywhere in the world.
SWMBO said it was the best English fish & chips she’d found in Utah.
The place was closed down, and torn down, several years ago. There are several other locations now, but they’re all clean and respectable, and it’s just not the same.
@blaineg I’ll have to do a cursory quality control test on that if I get out to Salt Lake again anytime soon. It’s freaking next to impossible to find decent fish and chips here. I’m afraid I got spoiled by the ones in New Zealand. Even the little cafes attached to gas stations did excellent fish and chips.
@werehatrack There’s also a couple of fish & chips trucks that meet with her approval. Fish On seems to be local only, but On the Hook covers several states.
I just have to add when I was younger my Mom would take my brother and me to Pic N Save. It had a buffet. It was a little embarrassing because people could see you in there eating. Also when I started my job at the Roosevelt mall in Jacksonville in 1987 they had a Woolworth eat in place. I’d go there at dinner break and get the BEST grilled cheese known to man. Awesome fries too! It was my least expensive option for something hot. Loved that place.
It occurs to me that my whole life has been full of loving cheap food from embarrassing places. Cause trust me I’m down with Taco Bell, Cici’s, Long John Silvers, Popeyes, you name it and I was there and it was good.
Jimmy John’s…easy to order and customize on the app and just run in and pick up…or In and Out -get a double-double animal style…no lettuce…no tomatoes…extra grilled onions…yum…taco bell would be another one but they stopped with the beef meximelts so we broke up…
McDonald’s at McRib time. 99.9% of the year I don’t give them a second thought but as soon as they drag out that processed, rib-shaped, pressed meat BBQ slug in a bun back out from behind the fryer of our collective consciousness, and sprinkle some onions on it, I’m there.
Dear god, I’m a monster aren’t I?
@GetClosure I’ve not had them often, but I can see the appeal.
@GetClosure @Targaryen When this was RE-introduced, wasn’t it a throwback to something they had long ago – I’m thinking around 1980? Anyone know. (oh, wait, there’s an internetz I can use, but I figure some of you may have more fun digging it up. And it’s lunchtime and I’ll get too hungry if think about it too much.)
@pmarin It may very well be. I do remember they promoted it alongside the Flintstones live-action movie with John Goodman in it. That was out in 1994 I believe?
@GetClosure The one time I had a McRib it nearly made me barf. A processed, rib-shaped, pressed byproducts & gristle slug.
It was an introductory promotion, and you got a free Indiana Jones VHS movie for trying the McRib.
Free was far too high a price, I should have just bought the movie myself and skipped the McRIb.
@GetClosure @pmarin @Targaryen
The one time I had a McRib it nearly made me barf. A processed, rib-shaped, pressed byproducts & gristle slug.
It was an introductory promotion, and you got a free Indiana Jones VHS movie for trying the McRib.
Free was far too high a price, I should have just bought the movie myself and skipped the McRib.
@blaineg @GetClosure @pmarin @Targaryen They do the same thing to beef, press it into a patty, slap it on a fancy bun & everyone lines up to pay $20+ for it in pretentious places like gastro pubs.
@GetClosure @pmarin @Targaryen Sorry for the double post. “Something went terribly wrong”, and I didn’t notice the dupe until now.
@GetClosure I absolutely go bonkers for a McRib. My husband swears they put McCrack in it to get people hooked. I recently found out that Germany has McRib in some McDonalds year round! I could certainly grow to love that!
@milstarr Ich bin dort! Lass uns gehen!
@blaineg @GetClosure @pmarin @Targaryen
the one time i had a mc rib it did make me barf…this was as a kid…it stuck…never again
For me, it’s probably Taco Bell and Panda Express. They tend to be places I want to go to, and then feel some level of shame or embarrassment about eating.
But. I too enjoy the McRib. Even though it sucks every time.
@ChadP For me it’s the knowledge that I can find better and similarly priced tacos or Chinese food at any local spot but the TB and the Panda just hits different.
@ChadP Panda is insanely popular with pretty much everyone. Its like the standard American Chinese food. Also, ain’t no way a local taco place is matching TBs prices. Those $5 boxes are a great deal.
@ChadP @Leftoverburrito pretty much any more authentic “Mexican food” place or truck is about $10 minimum now. And I don’t mean sit-down restaurants, just grab-and-go for $10 + tip.
Cheesecake Factory. Specifically, the avocado egg rolls. Though I actually have not been in a couple years, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.
/image cheesecake factory avocado egg rolls
@dave I want some of those I’ve never had them.
@dave We had a Cheesecake Factory but it closed.
We also had Chili’s and Olive Garden and they left town. People are snobby about chains but really, sometimes they’re good enough and affordable! Too many expensive trendy places everywhere now.
@dave @Kyeh We’ve still got all three of those, but what we seem to have lost is Bennigan’s. The closest is in Matamoros, just across the border past Brownsville. And TGI Friday may still be here, but it isn’t what it once was. Neither is Chili’s, to be honest.
Long John Silver’s.
Oh I DREAM of their too-salty fish planks and dubious coleslaw. I’m pretty sure no restaurant that fries up and serves fish in less than 2 minutes is a safe place to eat, but I don’t care.
Give me those sweet sweet hush puppies and packaged malt vinegar any day
@mimikyu This is it right here. It used to be a campy fun place. Now they’re cleaner and more like any standard fast food joint, but the product is just as sketchy. Still though, just give me a box of the crispy bits and I’m good to go.
@ExtraMedium Those crispy bits are like GOLD in our household. All 6 of the four legged pets swarm us whenever we buy food from there. It’s a mad house
@mimikyu @ExtraMedium Couldn’t imagine growing up in a world where I didn’t know what “crispy bits” were or that “hushpuppies” weren’t just a shoe style and sold by the dozen. For a price even a couch-surfing street punk couldn’t pass up before they went to IHOP for the cheap coffee.
@mimikyu those hush puppies can fill a void that not many other things can.
@mimikyu
I have not had long John silvers in years, decades. Oh how much I miss it. If I were to ever see one I’d drive right in.
@ExtraMedium @GetClosure @mimikyu I know hush puppies, and don’t get them. But I have no idea what crispy bits are.
@mimikyu @Star2236 We have one! It’s next to Cookout. Hard to pass by Cookout to get there though. Watermelon milkshakes- mmm.
@mimikyu oh man! The crispy bits are the bomb! Love them!
Good staff meeting everyone, glad we could get on the same page here.
Cici’s. I know it’s mediocre, but mediocre pizza is still pizza. The smell, the arcade, the sticky floors all bring be back to a simpler time. and it’s cheap.
@Leftoverburrito And if you ask them, they’ll make you an “Atkins pizza” which is sauce, cheese and toppings on a sheet of aluminum foil; it’s baked for a little less time than one with a crust would need.
@Leftoverburrito @werehatrack That’s true that Cici’s will make you about anything that you want and even deliver it to your table verses putting it on the buffet. A bit of trivia, Cici’s was founded in Plano, TX. I haven’t been there in ages but Cici’s #1 is still open on the corner of Spring Creek and Alma Roads.
@ironcheftoni
@Leftoverburrito sushi?
@Leftoverburrito well, within reason
i normally only get it once or twice a year, white castle. those burgers taste like no other.
@carl669 This is a good one for sure.
@carl669 Solid agree. And the frozen alternatives in the grocer’s freezer are a far, FAR cry from getting some in person. Sobriety optional.
@carl669
That was gonna be mine. There fries are soooo good. I don’t eat their burgers, chicken sandwich for me. Still awesome
PANS! GLANDS! CRAYONS! AWESOME!
No embarrassment here that I like the Ikea restaurant. Cafeteria style eating, but the prices reflect that and given I have food allergies, I know that they have safe choices.
Not the only retailer to have offered a restaurant. Old timers probably remember the K-Cafe.
@narfcake 1965 on that K-mart menu. In Miami, school lunches had gone up to 35 cents at that point, if I recall correctly. They weren’t worth it.
@narfcake “comes with Jello and a beverage” who knew that KMart came up with the combo meal
@ironcheftoni @narfcake I think it’s kind of the other way around - restaurant meals used to include sides and you’d pay more if you ordered things “a la carte;” then McDonald’s and the other fast food joints normalized buying each item separately. I think.
@narfcake I love the Ikea cafe!! And I BARELY remmeber the Kmart cafe. My grandma (passed when I was 6) loved it and she and I would go there anytime my mom wanted to shop at the big, red K
Not really a place I’m embarrassed about, but we stop by Chik-Fil-A a lot on the way home from an event. I found a connection with ice chips in the hospital during my thing that I went through, and Chik-Fil-A has the same or similar ice. When I go through the drive through and order stuff for my girls, I always order a large Coke, extra ice, and no Coke. Then I go home and eat ice with my hands. I’m a monster.
@capnjb it’s always a good thing to know which places have the “sonic ice”
@capnjb May I recommend an Opal Ice machine, bit on the pricey side, but you can combine gifts like a birthday/Christmas gift for that year….1000% worth it. Just don’t let you r neighbors know you have it…
@wifeduck I’ll check it out. Thanks!
@capnjb @wifeduck Second the Opal. I bought one last year and it’s been fantastic. (Also, either connect it to a water line or get the extra gallon tank… it goes through water pretty quickly… or maybe it’s that we go through ice pretty quickly.)
@capnjb @kalma I got the extra tank
There used to be a greasy-spoon diner near here whose lunch specials were the kind of traditional “a little lunch” you’d get in Minnesota. The chalkboard menu occasionally listed “Hot Dish”. Most of the folks eating there were anything but embarrassed, but I knew quite a few people who would have been, and my X2 worked with a bunch of them. As for me, it was good grub at a reasonable price. And you never had to deal with some jerk in a Mercedes taking up two parking spaces to protect his Precious.
@werehatrack
Want an M&H was it?
@chienfou Nope. Independent been-there-forever place that’s gone now.
Subway. I literally, just order one thing from there every time. The oven-roasted chicken sandwich. I think it’s been discontinued…but yeah. Not proud of enjoying that one.
@riskybryzness I’m a ‘Subway Club’ guy with red peppers and extra red peppers. It’s not great, but it’s equally not bad.
@capnjb @riskybryzness Except the “fresh baked” bread – remember that thing where in England their food was taxed higher because there was so much sugar in the bread that it was classified as a “cake” and therefore a pastry item, not a wholesome “food.”
@riskybryzness I know the flatbread is yoga pad, but I always gotta get a tuna sandwich with cheese, pickles, and mustard, 10/10, my favorite meal when I was working on the college newspaper
@capnjb @pmarin I SAID I WAS ASHAMED.
No but haven’t there been studies in the past about the legitimacy of their “meat” too? Lol
@capnjb @pmarin @riskybryzness I thought it was the tuna.
In any case, a number of Subway shops have closed around my area. They opened a lot in the past decades because of their low franchise fees, but all that meant was the customer base was spread out wide, and many owners got low to no return on their investments.
@capnjb @narfcake @pmarin @riskybryzness Yes, it was the tuna. Oddly enough, their tuna sub is the thing I always get.
If I don’t have to cook it I don’t care which place sells it if I can afford it and if it tastes good. Not embarrassed about any restaurant.
We used to like to go to Furr’s when we just weren’t up for anything else - zero-challenge food and zero social interaction usually.
@Kyeh Back when cafeterias were a thing. Before they all turned into re-branded Golden Corrals.
@GetClosure @Kyeh Worst and best thing about Golden Corral was that as you traveled around the country, the reconstituted frozen and canned food products were identical. The same cans of mixed vegetables, frozen fish and chicken products. Looking back I think it must have been pretty disgusting.
@GetClosure @pmarin “Was?” Have they gotten better? There are still plenty of Golden Corrals nearby here but I find them too expensive for just a lazy dinner and I don’t eat enough at one sitting to make it worthwhile.
If I want to pay a lot to overeat I’d rather go to one if those Brazilian steakhouses. I’ve only been to one, in Salt Lake City, and it was GOOD!
@GetClosure @Kyeh @pmarin
Watch for your local “restaurant week” when Fago de Chão will often run a special. Want to one on our last New Orleans trip.
@chienfou @GetClosure @pmarin
Hmm, thanks - seems worth a short drive!
@GetClosure @Kyeh @pmarin Rodizio was the first one in Salt Lake, but Tucanos is also great.
@blaineg @GetClosure @Kyeh @pmarin Concur on Tucanos. There’s one on the north central in Plano that’s pretty decent, too.
@blaineg @GetClosure @pmarin @werehatrack Tucanos was where we went, in the Gateway Plaza. So good!
Panera and Bahama Breeze. I love the Bahama Breeze pineapple bowl with jerk chicken. The Chocolate Island and Pineapple Cheesecake Empanadas for dessert are yummy too.
I grew up with MCL Cafeteria. Old Folks Food is what my Dad called it but Mom loved it.
@ChadP and I are in agreement with Taco Bell. My guiltiest pleasure. I typically only eat it when my Husbands out of town or at work because he makes so much fun of me for eating there. Old habits die hard. Sometimes I’ll go a year without it, sometimes a couple months.
@mandirose I pick up a taco pass whenever they offer one.
Virg’s Fish & Chips, about 30th South on State Street in Salt Lake.
Not only was the place tiny, disgusting, and greasy, I’m sure it met no building codes anywhere in the world.
SWMBO said it was the best English fish & chips she’d found in Utah.
The place was closed down, and torn down, several years ago. There are several other locations now, but they’re all clean and respectable, and it’s just not the same.
@blaineg I’ll have to do a cursory quality control test on that if I get out to Salt Lake again anytime soon. It’s freaking next to impossible to find decent fish and chips here. I’m afraid I got spoiled by the ones in New Zealand. Even the little cafes attached to gas stations did excellent fish and chips.
@blaineg @werehatrack
I hope this site never “cleans up” – it just wouldn’t be the same.
@werehatrack There’s also a couple of fish & chips trucks that meet with her approval. Fish On seems to be local only, but On the Hook covers several states.
https://onthehookfishandchips.com/
I just have to add when I was younger my Mom would take my brother and me to Pic N Save. It had a buffet. It was a little embarrassing because people could see you in there eating. Also when I started my job at the Roosevelt mall in Jacksonville in 1987 they had a Woolworth eat in place. I’d go there at dinner break and get the BEST grilled cheese known to man. Awesome fries too! It was my least expensive option for something hot. Loved that place.
POPSOCKETS! SPA KITS! POLLY POCKETS! AWESOME!
It occurs to me that my whole life has been full of loving cheap food from embarrassing places. Cause trust me I’m down with Taco Bell, Cici’s, Long John Silvers, Popeyes, you name it and I was there and it was good.
Jimmy John’s…easy to order and customize on the app and just run in and pick up…or In and Out -get a double-double animal style…no lettuce…no tomatoes…extra grilled onions…yum…taco bell would be another one but they stopped with the beef meximelts so we broke up…