Who hasn’t been disappointed with food that looks great in an advertisement, yet doesn’t quite live up to expectations? Well, this pictorial page confirms what we already knew about the look of the food.

Now if only there were a way to do the same thing with the taste of the food…as my least “favorite” restaurant says, “Everyone Deserves a Good Meal.” Now if only they (and many others) could only deliver on that promise the world would be a better place.

Luckily Yats! never disappoints and I’m salivating at the thought as I type this. It may not be “pretty”, but boy do they have some fine Cajun/Creole food at an excellent price.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m not typically a “picky eater”? I’ll try most anything (reasonable) at least once, with the exception of the non-starchy vegetables, and I actively seek out non-chain eateries. I think I’ll have to blog my list of local eats some day. Until then, parents, don’t let your children eat crappy food. And please don’t subject your friends and family to it either. That just wouldn’t be nice.

Apparently my oldest son really likes Marshmallow Peeps heads…

…either that, or they looked at him funny.

I was recently over at a friends house and we decided that we wanted to make some nachos, but all of the ingredients were not on hand. So we hopped in his car and he headed to a certain foreign based discount supermarket chain. While not my first choice (or any choice at all) for purchasing meat, I did find the signage interesting.

Above the ground beef it said:

80% Fresh Ground Beef

At this point I’m pleading with him to at least get the 97% Fresh Ground Beef, as it would be easier to stomach 3% of whatever the non-fresh ground beef consisted of. I’m standing there thinking, out loud of course, what in the world could that 3 or 20 % consist of. In a “regular” grocery store that would often refer to the amount of fat in the beef (97% lean for example), but was that the case here. Of course, I wasn’t going to take the time to actually read the label and my mind began on a journey of its own.

Was the other part rancid ground beef? I’d heard of such practices before with meat and dairy. Maybe it was ground turkey or pork? Maybe it was soy? Or maybe it was something else entirely? I don’t know, but I wondered and I was praying for it to be fat. Juicy, greasy, slimy cow fat.

So we got back and made the nachos and they tasted okay and I don’t believe that any of us got sick from it. But maybe we were the lucky ones and someone else walked away with our portion of “other”. Again, I don’t know and didn’t care to read the label.

Other than that, I will say to stay away from the generic Swiss Cake Rolls/Ho Hos and to spend an extra quarter or two for the real thing. You’ll thank me for it later, trust me.

He who said there is no such thing as a “free lunch” is (mostly) wrong.

Last week I won lunch for 15-20 people from Chipotle just for dropping my business card in their “fish bowl”. So yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch (a $140.29 lunch at that)…and no, we’re not going to count the minuscule cost of printing the business card, the previous trip for dinner and the gas to drive there since these are things that really have no bearing on free lunch (I would have done all of these regardless).

So thanks guys! It was tasty as always.

Last year I said that I probably wouldn’t partake in Red Lobster’s Endless Shrimp™ Fest again after devouring 78 Shrimp Scampi along with a salad and biscuits last year (and feeling horrible the next day). Well, I’m a sucker for shrimp. I broke down and went again this year for the third year in a row, but this time with any sort of competition in mind as I wanted to enjoy it.

So this year the damage was 35 Shrimp Scampi, one order of Popcorn Shrimp & one order of Shrimp Pasta (I mainly picked out the shrimp and brought the pasta home for leftovers) along with a salad and biscuits. I still feel like an American glutton, but I feel much better than I did after last year. Next year I’ll probably cut it back to 25 Shrimp Scampi, but we’ll see…because they are so tasty and just slide down so easily.