The Buca di Beppo restaurant in Irvine is closing tomorrow. We stopped in this evening for a final meal. It was a sad occasion. Buca has been one of our culinary mainstays for over a decade. Here we are laughing to keep from crying: We had antipasto salad and baked ziti, a very close call over the spicy chicken rigatoni. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Restaurants
Eat Mor Chikin
I like Chick-fil-A. I like that they put people with a mastery of English at the drive-thru, and I especially like that, unlike every other fast food outlet, they never ask me if I’d like to try the latest menu item. Carl’s Jr. is the worst offender in this area. They seem to constantly have new items on both the breakfast menu and the regular menu so no matter what hour of the day I show up, they have something to force feed me. “You have a huge picture of that item right here on the menu. It’s not like I’m unaware of its existence. Why can’t you just let me order what I want to order and stop badgering me?” It’s rude. They don’t do it face to face because they know it’s rude. They don’t “would you like to try” you if you get out of your car… Read more →
Minimum Wage Proposal: $0.00
You can’t make ends meet on 8 bucks an hour? I can see where that would be a problem. When did fast food jobs become jobs for family breadwinners? Fast-food jobs are for high-school kids. You want to make $15 an hour? Simple: get a job that pays $15 an hour. What’s stopping you? Other than your lack of skills, education, motivation and accomplishments? If no employer is willing to pay you $15 an hour, then guess what? You’re not worth $15 an hour. You need to do something about that. Why is $15 an hour the magic number? Why not $16? Or $17? Why not $50 an hour? At $50 an hour, everyone would make a nice 6-figure income and poverty would be a thing of the past, right? If you raise the price of a product or service, the demand for the product or service goes down —… Read more →
Overheard at Subway
“Last time I was here, I decided to have a pink lemonade instead of a soda. Biggest mistake of my life.” “The biggest mistake of your life was buying a pink lemonade?” “Yeah. My whole afternoon was ruined.” Read more →
Overheard at Souplantation
Customer to Mexican busboy: “Great soups today! I love the albo-dingus!” Read more →
Japan, Day 8: Walking in Tokyo
Things you notice when walking in Tokyo . . . 1) There are lots and lots of people . . . 2) Most of them are not very tall . . . 3) Because there are a lot of people in a small amount of space (even though they are small people), Tokyo is built to take advantage of vertical space. For example, I’ve never seen a two- or three-story fast food restaurant in the U.S. but they’re common in Tokyo. Businesses that usually are two or three stories in the U.S., like department stores, in Tokyo are eight or ten stories. Flying back home tomorrow . . . sayonara! Read more →
Japan, Day 0: Floyd Mayweather at Panda Express
We saw Floyd Mayweather at LAX . . . Actually, my son saw him. When the boy pointed him out to me, all I could see was the back of a smallish man in a black hoodie surrounded by half a dozen of the largest human beings I’ve ever seen. You have to get past those guys to get your shot at Floyd. They were all standing on line at Panda Express in one of the food courts. Normally, I don’t envision famous, wealthy people eating Panda Express, and if they do, I don’t picture them standing on line for it. I picture them sending someone to fetch it while they hang out in the first class passenger lounge. Good advertisement for Panda Express. Better than those ridiculous goddamn talking pandas. In other close encounters with boxing legends, I once saw Sugar Ray Leonard and his family at Juice It… Read more →
ADHD in the Making
My family and I are enjoying a meal at a Japanese restaurant. In the booth behind me are a husband and wife and five kids, the oldest of whom looks to be about 12. One of the kids, a boy of about 5, is standing up and running a toy car back and forth along the divider between his booth and our booth. He gets bored with that after a while and starts drumming on the divider with a pair of chopsticks. The boy’s activities don’t bother me much . . . what bothers me is that it takes 15 minutes for one of the parents to tell him to stop it and sit down. He doesn’t do either and nothing else is said or done about the matter. In the near future, this boy’s inability to sit still and follow directions will get him “diagnosed” by a schoolteacher as… Read more →
A $15 Minimum Wage is Not Going to Help You
Fast Food Workers Will Strike On Thursday In L.A. : LAist Fast food workers staged a one-day strike for “living wages.” More specifically, they want the federal minimum wage to be raised from $7.25 an hour to $15. You want to make a living wage? I’ll tell you how to make a living wage. I’ve had a lot of jobs and this method has never failed me. Here it is: Before accepting a job offer, you always ask yourself, “Does this job pay enough for me to live on?” And if the answer is no, then you don’t take that job. If you want to earn $15 an hour, do what I do: get a job that pays $15 an hour. Who’s stopping you? If no one’s willing to pay you $15 an hour, it’s because the skills, intelligence and motivation that you bring to the table don’t allow you… Read more →
At the Drive-Thru
“Hi, would you like to try our new [insert product name here]?” “Do you think I’ll like it?” “Uh, I don’t know.” “Then why are you recommending it? Don’t you want me to be happy?” Read more →
The Aliens Have Landed in Irvine
It’s about one in the afternoon at the Irvine In-N-Out Burger. A guy who looks to be in his early 20s comes in wearing a backward baseball cap, dark sunglasses (which he never removes) and — despite a temperature in the high 80s — a pullover sweater. To simplify the storytelling, let’s call this guy Alf. Alf waits in line, places his order, then immediately walks over and stands in front of the pickup counter. The place is packed, and I can tell from looking at the number on my own ticket that there are about 10 more orders ahead of me, and since I ordered before him, there are about 15 more orders ahead of Alf, so there’s no reason for him to be standing at — in fact, leaning on — the pickup counter. After a few moments, the kid at the pickup counter asks Alf what his… Read more →
Taco Warmer
Photo by supjchwa2 “Jack in the Box tacos have to be eaten when they’re hot, so when I buy them at the drive-thru, I also buy a bag of french fries, set the fries on top of the tacos and use them as a taco warmer to keep the tacos hot until I get them home and eat them.” “Do you eat the fries as well?” “No, I don’t eat the fries. I just use them to keep the tacos warm.” “The french fries keep the tacos warm?’ “Right.” “What keeps the french fries warm?” Read more →
Eating in Restaurants
Before venturing out of your home to eat in a restaurant, learn to chew with your mouth closed. This applies whether you’re 7 or 70 . . . Read more →
EppsNet Restaurant Reviews: Gulliver’s
The smoked salmon appetizer was superb, as was the prime rib entree. Attentive service is provided by busty waitresses in the Brobdingnagian tradition. “Did you notice all the waitresses had big tits?” my wife asked. Highly recommended! Read more →
Stick to the Script. Don’t Ad Lib.
I’m at the Carl’s Jr. drive-thru, and in keeping with the time-honored fast food tradition of having the person with the worst command of the English language and/or the most unintelligible accent work the drive-thru, the guy says, “Welcome to Carl’s Jr. Would you like to try [unintelligible] patty [unintelligible]?” “What?” “Welcome to Carl’s Jr. . . .” Read more →
We Caught a Break at Chili’s Last Night
We got to Chili’s around 8 o’clock last night but it was still very crowded. People were waiting outside. “How long is the wait?” I asked the hostess. “About 25 minutes.” I said to my posse, “I’d rather not wait 25 minutes but I could do it if I had to. What do you guys think?” My wife said, “Put our name on the list and we’ll talk about it outside.” “Paul — party of three.” The hostess gave me one of those devices that beep and light up when your table is ready. At the same time, a gentleman came up to the desk to turn in his device. “We can’t wait anymore,” he said. “Maybe you could give us his device,” I suggested after he left. “Where was he on the list?” She went down the list of names. “Second,” she said. “Yeah, I could do that.” “Thanks.”… Read more →
The Cheese Board
Anti-establishment types One of the highlights of our Berkeley visit was a trip to The Cheese Board for pizza. We parked on a side street and when we walked around the corner I saw a line of people down the sidewalk. “What’s that line?” I asked. “That’s The Cheese Board,” my kid said. “Don’t worry, it goes fast.” He explained that they only make one kind of pizza per day — always vegetarian — so all you can do is order a slice, a half pizza or a whole pizza and be on your way. Yesterday’s selection was fresh corn, feta cheese, mozzarella, and cilantro pesto. Because they serve so fast and the shop is small, there’s not not enough room for all the patrons, many of whom repair to the median on Shattuck Ave. and enjoy their pizza in the shade of the Keep Off Median signs. Read more →
Top Dog
Pushing the Avocado
The girl at Subway was really pushing the avocado today . . . the third time she asked someone, “Do you want anything else on your sandwich? Some avocado, maybe?” I asked her, “Does the avocado cost extra?” “Yes,” she said. “Do you want some?” “No, but I was thinking if it was free it would be a good deal. If I liked avocado.” Read more →
Queueing Theory
Put four fat chicks in one car and you can slow the normally brisk pace of the McDonald’s drive-thru lane down to an absolute crawl . . . Read more →