The Random Crap Thread 2: It Hits the Fan.

PatrThom

PatrThom

Bubble181 said:
"Worst burger ever had", "sad burger place" - you guys have never been to France, where fast food comes to die :-P the French do a lot of things good (like surrendering :whistling:), including in food, but the "fast" part somehow gets completely lost in translation...and often the "food" part too ;)
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The best burger I ever had anywhere in Europe was in a restaurant in Madrid that claimed to serve "American food," and even though it was the best I had, it still definitely tasted like it was 3500 miles away from New York City.

--Patrick
 
Frank

Frank

Not to be a jag, but the best burger in the fucking world was made in my home town. The guy there got his beef from his cousin's dairy farm just outside of town and it was all old retired dairy cattle. He got his buns fresh from the bakery 2 doors down.

That burger was insane.
 
Frank

Frank

Man, I'm from the territories/northern Alberta, we had so many bison everywhere that they were a menace on the roads. I like bison. Bison is delicious. Bison does not hold a candle to old dairy cow. I think about the only beef that can claim to be better is actual wagyu.
 
Eriol

Eriol

Gared said:
There was a location in south Tacoma that was quite possibly the saddest place I'd ever been. Either it was while Yum! still owned them, or there was one out of luck franchisee, because it was an A&W/KFC, and the whole place reminded me of a sad, black and white movie's horrible, run down diner. The lobby was dingy, the workers were so expressionless as to be almost comatose, half the menu items were out of stock (regardless of menu), the soda machine was just leaking carbonated water out of some of the taps and it was overflowing the drip tray onto the floor, none of the food was fresh, and you could only pay with cash or food stamps/EBT. That was the last time I'd eaten at an A&W until we moved here, and we decided to try it since it was a stand-alone restaurant in a small town - I mean, why not? The Subway's even halfway decent - but it was not to be.
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I tried an A&W in the USA about 20 years ago, and it was as awful as you describe. But in Canada, maybe it's a completely different owner or something, as it's "good fast food". A better burger IMO than McD's & BK. Not as good as a good bar burger, but definitely not crap. And the restaurants are clean, reasonably fast, etc. So from my single experience with an utterly TERRIBLE A&W in the USA 20 years ago, it sounds like what you describe, but if you come to Canada your experience will be wholly different.

And here's why: They're Not Associated With Each other. They went their separate ways in the 1970s. That's why the Canadian brand is #2 after McDonalds in Canada, whereas in the USA it is crap like you say.
A&W Food Services of Canada, Inc. is a Canadian fast food restaurant chain.[3] The chain was originally part of the U.S.-based A&W Restaurants chain, but was sold to Unilever in 1972, and then bought by its management in 1995.[4] It no longer has any corporate connection to A&W operations outside of Canada.[5]

The Canadian operation is owned and operated by the privately held A&W Food Services of Canada Inc., based in North Vancouver, British Columbia.[3] In December 2013, A&W was Canada's second-largest quick service restaurant burger chain with 850 outlets after McDonald's 1,400 outlets.
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So if you're in Canada, try it, it won't be like the USA one.
 
checkeredhat

checkeredhat

Yeah, A&W in Canada is very good. It's in a special tier of burger restaurants.
I'd say it ranks similar to Harvey's. Below Hero Burger and Five Guys, but way above Burger King, McDonalds and Wendy's.

It's also the only place in Canada where you can get the Beyond Meat vegan burger patty.
 
Eriol

Eriol

checkeredhat said:
Yeah, A&W in Canada is very good. It's in a special tier of burger restaurants.
I'd say it ranks similar to Harvey's. Below Hero Burger and Five Guys, but way above Burger King, McDonalds and Wendy's.
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I don't have a high opinion of Harvey's, but it's not TERRIBLE either. The biggest problem with them IMO is they're not "enough better" for how much slower they are, but as I said last sentence, not terrible either.

It's also the only place in Canada where you can get the Beyond Meat vegan burger patty.
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I tried that just to say I had tried it. And IMO it's only OK. If I hadn't known what it was, I would have said it was a "high filler content" meat burger. So not nearly as good as their regular burgers, but miles ahead of most veggie burgers.
 
checkeredhat

checkeredhat

Eriol said:
I don't have a high opinion of Harvey's, but it's not TERRIBLE either. The biggest problem with them IMO is they're not "enough better" for how much slower they are, but as I said last sentence, not terrible either.


I tried that just to say I had tried it. And IMO it's only OK. If I hadn't known what it was, I would have said it was a "high filler content" meat burger. So not nearly as good as their regular burgers, but miles ahead of most veggie burgers.
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Yup. Harveys is, like I said, kinda inbetween. I would say the quality of beef is a bit better at A&W but Harveys is slightly cheaper. The main benefit of Harveys though is the options. Only Hero Burger and Five Guys, as far as chain restaurants go, have as many toppings options, Harveys gives you all those options at a price point kinda between those chains and BK, McD etc. You want jalepenos and BBQ sauce? You want CORN? You want Guacamole? Whatever man, go nuts. And they don't charge extrafor guacamole even though everyone charges up the ass for guacamole nowadays.


I haven't tried the Beyond Burger yet but I will next time I'm at an A&W. I'm not vegetarian or vegan, but I do *try* to eat vegan as much as I can. Harveys Veggie patty is just an Yves patty, I'm positive of it. And Yves sucks.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Such things happen. Burger King, for example, is a very clear cut above McDonalds/Quick (a Belgian-French chain). There were petitions to please bring BK to Belgium because they didn't exist here.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
The burger I enjoyed most in my life was circa 1999 at a Carl's Jr. in Colorado Springs. Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger. The meat was flavorful, the bacon was just right, the onion rings were crispy, and the barbecue sauce was the best. I went back there as often as I could until I moved to Texas.
 
Gared

Gared

Carl's Jr. and Hardee's can be great. When they're good, they're damn good; but when they're bad, look out. I still love those damn Double Western Bacon Cheeseburgers though. And their spicy chicken sandwiches are the best cheap chicken sandwiches of all the chains (and I'd put it against Wendy's $5 chicken sandwiches any day).
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah, I've noticed the various other Carls Junior I've been to since moving have not been as good... must have just been that one magic location.

Still, Sonic was pretty good, too. Can't eat it anymore though :p well, I COULD... for about 3 bites... and then I'd probably ralf all over the parking lot. And then I'd get in a loop because I'd eat more burger and then barf more, and that might get me into a habit that I shouldn't.
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

This is the best burger I've had, from a Bacoa in Barcelona a few years ago. It was either a limited-time burger (bun looks different than their usual) or a modified Manchega.

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Dave

Dave

Staff member
I've gotten at least 4 "Happy Birthday!" emails from vendors today. It's not my birthday. I don't put fake birthdays down on websites. One I can see. Two...okay, that's a little weird. Three means there's something up. Four means there must be a glitch in the matrix.

I went to a couple of them to check. Nope. Correct date in their system.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Dave said:
I've gotten at least 4 "Happy Birthday!" emails from vendors today. It's not my birthday. I don't put fake birthdays down on websites. One I can see. Two...okay, that's a little weird. Three means there's something up. Four means there must be a glitch in the matrix.

I went to a couple of them to check. Nope. Correct date in their system.
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Odd... my phone tells me your birthday's next week.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I'm looking forward to the move to our new home for many reasons. Simple ones, like having a linen closet instead of a cardboard box, and more nuanced ones, like not being able to hear our upstairs neighbor going to the bathroom or our next door neighbor having sex.
 
HCGLNS

HCGLNS

Phone rings....

Me "Hello dear how are you now?"
Wife "Bears bears bears."
Me "Is everything ok?"
Wife "Bears bears bears."
Me ".....okay....."
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

HCGLNS, you should know by now when your wife starts saying "Bears bears bears bears" that it will mean only one thing.

Your wallet will be much lighter.
 
Eriol

Eriol

Cog said:
She finished the book and wants more. This is going to get expensive.
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Is there a decent library near you? Could be an option. I know that's what my parents did for me. When I was going through a book a week (or faster) at a certain point in my youth, I'm sure it saved them hundreds of dollars.
 
Cog

Cog

Eriol said:
Is there a decent library near you? Could be an option. I know that's what my parents did for me. When I was going through a book a week (or faster) at a certain point in my youth, I'm sure it saved them hundreds of dollars.
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There are libraries, but they don't lend books. I've mentioned before that in this city there are no things to do for us nerds. The closest "real" book store is in the next city. Vero and I decided that we are going to try to buy Gaby at least one book a month, at least until she doesn't finish them in one week.
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

Used Kindles (1/2/3 gen) can be in the $20-30 USD range. They're very easy to load books onto (PDFs are drop-in, other formats may require a touch of Calibre), are rugged, and won't do much other than serve books (i.e. no temptation to play games instead). That said, I'm not sure what the pre-YA Spanish e-book market looks like, specially price-wise (I would imagine prices would be set to US/EU in non-market-segregated editorials). Might be something to keep in mind for when their reading voracity speeds up.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Ugh, you really don't want to be loading PDFs onto a Kindle unless you absolutely have to. It's much better to get things into .mobi
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

figmentPez said:
Ugh, you really don't want to be loading PDFs onto a Kindle unless you absolutely have to. It's much better to get things into .mobi
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The only bad experiences I've had regarding PDFs and my Kindles involved very graphic-heavy documents (which is really not what a 2nd gen Kindle is for anyway). Text PDFs, or those with very few diagrams, that conform to standard book size work really well for me.

Regardless, I agree that going with e-book formats where possible is best.
 
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