Much as we want everything we eat to be both tasteful and tasty, there are times when we slip up and knowingly put garbage in our mouths, or curiosity leads us into the darkest of corners. For instance, you order sushi at a Chinese place, or you’re so starved that you ignore the look on your deli man’s face that says, “Are you sure? I was just going to throw this away.” Below, our most recent crimes against gastronomy — if you’ve had any memorably bad meals lately, won’t you share them in the comments?
1. “Baconzilla” burger at Checkers. A lifeless gray patty, flat as an air-hockey puck.
2. Cheese Dduk Bok Gi at Mad for Chicken. Never mind hopes of a lowbrow brilliant casserole à la Yakitori Taisho’s Chikuwa Cheese: The “special hot paste” tasted like ketchup and the rice and fish cakes tasted bland as a rubber band. Only consumable after a Jäger bomb pitcher, which are sold here.
3. Pig heart off of a truck in Washington Heights. After a day of sitting around in the open air, this ticker came out dark and coarse after being fried and chopped — nowhere near as delectable as the pig snout that accompanied it.
4. Bagel all-the-way at Market Diner. Sadly, lovely seating outside of a sixties gem didn’t make up for limp lox and Philly cream cheese in plastic packets.
5. Macaroni and cheese from Kool Bloo. Not accustomed to throwing anything out after two bites, much less mac and cheese. But that’s what you get for eating Kool Bloo sober (and, for that matter, for being sober at 2 a.m.).
Honorable mention goes to Jim Bean’s newish cherry-flavored bourbon drink, Red Stag. Yes, we totally brought this on ourselves, but Patron Café had lowered our guard against flavored liquor (coffee + tequila = actually pretty good), and we were amused enough by the label’s macho posturing (deer horns, etc.) over what’s essentially amped-up cough syrup. But yeah, not good.
So, have you had any downright awful meals lately? Please do tell!
Previously on Grub Street...
