people that YELP are scumbags

one douche to rule them all

really hope Yelp sues them in to oblivion, seeing as though the logical conclusion of their business model eventually invalidates all Yelp reviews

This is amazing. So the idea is that anyone who gets one of these cards converts themselves into a protection racket on two legs? I knew all this media fetishization of the mob would end poorly.

it's as if these people have no idea what the function of a food critic is

we should really print up stickers that at first glance look exactly like those "read about us on Yelp!" stickers businesses put in their front windows but actually say "people who Yelp! are scumbags"

"People hate us on YELP!" stickers exist and I have seen them posted on the doors of insufferable coffeeshops, a phenomenon in which a scumbag has actually climbed into its own bag and inverted itself into a kind of scum Klein bottle

http://www.comfortmewithoffal.com/post/41276851167/introducing-the-douchecard

it's getting to a point where the pure weird scumbags are preferable to the average yelper, but really everyone that yelps is a scumbag i guess. it's annoying going to a great restaurant where literally everyone in our party was ecstatic about everything we were served only to go on yelp to find a 3-star avg because everyone wants to pretend to be a real food critic and probably had a grading rubric running through their brains during the entire meal, and these are all people who probably never took atmosphere or decor into account when judging restaurants pre-yelp, and they probably didn't care so much that their waiter wasn't the most perfect waiter in the world (nb our waiter was the most perfect waiter in the world what are you all talking about)

like hey yelp thanks for convincing me that some zagat shit is the pinnacle of the where-has-good-food industry, just shut down bc you are a net negative to the quality of the universe

It's Royal Farms, man. What do you expect to get here except, you know, Royal Farms things?

I remember being extremely drunk in here once and I think I might have stolen some chicken or something and eaten it. I apologize for that, but I'm not really certain if I did that or not. It was all through the haze of a fever dream, the skyward spear of apollo that pierces the sun.

My friend eats the fries here but he really shouldn't because man they are not healthy, even though they are delicious. I typically buy some chicken. Sometimes I steal chicken, I think. Maybe. Probably not. Is this usable in court? I've been to court, man, it's not fantastic but at least it's a good reason to wear a decent suit.

Once I was in here with my friend A. and one of the girls that works here was leafing through a selection of plastic wrapped porno mags, one with 3 free DVDs, and she asked us if "*um s*cking "unts" was a term we found sexy, as it adorned the cover of one of the magazines. We said no, and made jokes about the fact that anyone that buys porn in this day and age of online pornography is either a fool or a fool's brother. The girls told us that there is one guy who comes in every month in a business suit, normal looking guy, but he spends around 10 minutes looking through each magazine so he can buy only the ones that have not been touched, like virgin magazines. He then scans them himself because he doesn't want anyone else to touch them. This guy exists, and he is in Baltimore, and I don't know that seems kind of amazing in a way, like finding a deep fried bug in your fries and marveling at the fact that it is so delightfully crispy between the teeth.

Anyways, it's a Royal Farms, so yeah, it's ok I guess. It's not as good as waking up to the soft feathered sighs of a blue shaded dawn with the pale shoulder curvature of a lost love beside you, but not every place can be as great as my bedroom, girl.

Bonus: This is my 69th review. heh.

......................... heh.

bum socking aunts

ok nvm the weird ones are the worst

i remember back in internet 0.9 days when review sites were this new thing and everyone was over-earnest and all jean teasdale about it and there were the occasional gonzo reviewers and they weren't great, but somehow it felt fresh and exciting like "you can _do_ that?"

and now there are no rules to break worth breaking and everyone has no respect and everything sucks.

Essentially, the Internet, as a tool to discover people's opinions, became almost unusable sometime shortly after Seanbaby.

i for one welcome adulthood

Essentially, the Internet, as a tool to discover people's opinions, became almost unusable sometime shortly after Seanbaby Maddox

There were 7 people in my party. The food was great. Everyone had a game burger save for my daughter who had a regular 1/2lb burger. The food was pretty good. Not great but it was good.

a regular 1/2lb burger

don't ask me why i was reading the yelp reviews of a local fuddruckers, but yeah 1/2 lb is their 2nd smallest of 4 choices

I had a dream last night that one of you started a Yelp competitor website called "FeedbackShack." Alas, all iterations of the domain are registered but unused.

hahaha

I'm commenting on their catering and customer service rather than the product itself or the stand alone shops. I had a friend who used them to cater for her wedding and what a disaster! They came an hour early while very one was just sitting down to eat so it ruined the element of surprise. Then when we did go out for ice cream, they did not bring bowls or spoons or cones. You were to just hold your hand out and get ice cream I guess! You know, just like at the store..you bring your own? Then the company never apologized to her. Nothing! It was a disaster. People were eating ice cream with drinking straws from the bar and coffee cups! Ugh!
The ice cream is great but you know...there are alot of great ice cream. So thumbs down on customer service.

the best catering is done by surprise

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home surrounded by fruit trees, vegetable gardens... filled with the smells of baking and cooking. This is one of the reasons I chose to live in the Bay Area - for the Food Culture - and perhaps, as a subset, the Cult of Food.

We baked seasonal pies by the dozen, peeling, coring and slicing bushels of apples in the Fall, often having warm-from-the-oven pie with milk and sharp cheddar cheese for dinner. Summer meant doing battle with the Japanese fruit beetles, racing to pick nectarines that grew heavy in our tree: jam, pies, and cobblers cooled on every kitchen surface.

The towering lemon tree meant sugar-slicked smiles and dueling lemonade stands operated by rival teams of siblings. Just typing this memory conjures the grinding whiirrrrrr of the old ice cream maker, the perfume of sun-warmed strawberries, the crunch of rock salt and chipped ice.

I have my upbringing to thank for my infatuation and great weakness for frozen dairy treats. It is also to blame for my inability to appreciate most commercially available product because it simply isn't "rich enough". It just depresses me to look at the packaging and see "Low Fat" or "Reduced Fat" - to me, it may as well read: REDUCED PLEASURE.

sugar-slicked smiles

fucking barf

this person... ate pie for dinner, often

apparently baked in the family vegetable garden

jam, pies, and cobblers cooled on every kitchen surface.

I mean, I am certain this is hyperbole, but then again this person claims they grew up eating pie for dinner so maybe they were cooling cobblers and pies on every square inch of kitchen surface

The rest, it gets grosser:

These days, I'd much rather have a single dip of an ethereal ice cream (sorbet or gelato) from a lovingly edited collection; I turn my nose up at encyclopedic flavors and toppings. I scream for ice cream boutiques!

After an insufferably dismal "meal" at a pretentious vegan place, I practically skipped several blocks and burst through the door, rosy-cheeked and breathless with anticipation. The shop is warm and cozy, the decor is simple and bright.

My eyes searched for the Boccalone Lard Caramels, which I discovered at the Ferry Building several years ago. It is my habit to purchase whatever quantity is in the glass jar, to smile winningly as I ask for ALL of them to be added to my order. The marriage of sugar, salt and fat is luxurious. It's an olfactory jackpot.

The first time I sampled this otherworldly confection, my knees trembled so violently, I had to sit down. My eyes glazed over. All my senses were mesmerized by the symphony of sweet and savory; the delicate wrapper glistened with body-temperature porcine unctuousness. I dabbed it behind my ears.

Boccalone #Cinque - the ultimate in seductive scents.

No Lard Caramels in sight... But behold: Bacon Brittle. Yes, please!

I oohed and aahed and Mmmm'd, tasting my way through half of the selections. There were a few that I almost skipped because I had to remind myself that theirs is not an ordinary vanilla. It's the most un-vanilla (wink) vanilla you've tasted. Like, your eyes roll back in your head and an audible moan escapes from somewhere deep in your being kind of goooooooood.

The Black Sesame was technicolor vivid, tap dancing across my tastebuds: rich, toasted, nutty, creamy, sweet. It was big, and I liked it. I chose Brown Butter + haus made brittle to keep it company in my compostable cup. Imagine my delight when the sugar cone I'd struck from my order was placed atop one of the scoops. So my ice cream was wearing a hat, too!

The Amigo let me taste his Sundae: chocolate & vanilla sprinkled with sea salt and anointed with a generous dollop of heavy cream, WHIPPED, FOR HER PLEASURE, densely dairy and hardly sweetened. Oh, yeah, baby - you know just how I like it!

I wanted to go slow, slow, slow and take my time. I wanted to savor every spoonful of sweet, creamy, buttery, salty, nutty, cold deliciousness that danced on my tongue. Alas, 9:00pm came too quickly, as did the bottom of my cup.

It was a Cinderella moment, to be certain. One more wistful glance into the freezer case, just a few more hungry gazes over the empty counter top... The once-attentive staff turning quickly, efficiently into mice, scurrying to close up shop, cleaning and tidying. The clock began to chime: one last look, as I turned and stepped out into the street -

There I stood, for a brief moment in the darkness. The whirrrrrrrr a phantom whisper in my mind, the fragrance of sugar and cream clinging to my hair, a sticky smile upon my cream-kissed lips.

marcloi.gif

CREAM-KISSED

FUCK i meant shiroibasketshoes.gif

I was going to remark on the pathetic lack of self-awareness in the line about the pretentious vegan place but then I started reading the rest of it and basically I would like to die now

I wanted to savor every spoonful of sweet, creamy, buttery, salty, nutty, c

You may have found the worst person ever.

Alas, 9:00pm came too quickly, as did the bottom of my cup.

dude

i'll never think about the bottom of my cup the same way again.

I scream for ice cream boutiques

say it out loud

I know this person is basically fucking with us but I really hope this is completely in earnest because this is amazingly hilarious:

My eyes searched for the Boccalone Lard Caramels, which I discovered at the Ferry Building several years ago. It is my habit to purchase whatever quantity is in the glass jar, to smile winningly as I ask for ALL of them to be added to my order. The marriage of sugar, salt and fat is luxurious. It's an olfactory jackpot.

The first time I sampled this otherworldly confection, my knees trembled so violently, I had to sit down. My eyes glazed over. All my senses were mesmerized by the symphony of sweet and savory; the delicate wrapper glistened with body-temperature porcine unctuousness. I dabbed it behind my ears.

#Cinque

I fucking love caramels but one surefire way to keep me from eating them is to market them as "lard caramels"

i'm sorry, i think i fell asleep and woke up in the rolling NYT thread

i feel like yelp is a place where a lot of amanda palmer types have ended up congregating

hah this is such wanktastic writing i was surprised to see it's a woman

http://www.yelp.com/biz/humphry-slocombe-ice-cream-san-francisco#hrid:oEQ_vjaJzuEoG9QEhRW4Kg

upcoming TED talk: how to improve your city using nothing but yelp reviews

I am beginning to think this woman is a horrifying national treasure:

I do not have a personal trainer to bitch-slap bread and cheese out of my hand, and as I careen towards 40, am taking a serious look at my eating habits. But only because I've been taking a serious look at my waistline... which got a little more serious over the holidaze, childrens. I'm not gonna lie. #Hungrygirlproblems!

After a great amount of contemplation, meditation, degustation and slight inebriation, a poll on FB and a crap-ton of online research, I narrowed it down to 3 upper-range consumer level juicer-smoothie contraptions.

Went to another place to handle the floor samples, but didn't like the configuration and effort required for set up, breakdown or cleaning. Decided to call here while driving across the bridge and spoke with Kyle.

He was gracious and described the difference between the two Vitamix models that were in stock. I didn't mention that I was en route and had basically made up my mind already to purchase.

I am a kitchen gadget slut, but not for the sake of having stuff clutter my drawers. I love my 60" Boos Butcher Block Island with overhead rack storage. My Le Creuset collection is the most colorful, versatile and hardest working cookware I own.

I've come a long way since my starter set from... you know... *whisper* Ikea. There, I said it - and don't even act like you can't relate!

Kyle recognized me as the voice of the Vitacurious caller. He showed me the models and answered the very few questions I actually had. In-store purchases have a 1 year warranty; my actual product has 7 year coverage.

I am a sucker for stellar service, and Kyle rocked it. He will be relocating to Seattle inside the next month to be a buyer at the corporate office; he just found out on Tuesday. Yay, for Kyle! Yay for Seattle! Sadsies for me, since I won't be able to see his smiling face again for future purchases.

Actually, Yay for Sur La Table for promoting quality talent from within; everybody benefits that way, right?

Current promotion: 1 year subscription to Bon Appetite with $50 purchase. I asked if I could have a free 14 year subscription, but Kyle said no. But only because he isn't in charge of the promotions. I'll ask him again when he's been promoted to like, King of Purchasing, and I'm sure he will say yes then, because I can say I knew him "way back when..."

Bonus: jar of organic Cherokee Purple Tomatoes. Bloody Mary Mondays, here I come! Green Lemonade is more like it, because I am about to start eating Paleo again. This week.

Next week at the latest.

Seriously, though - quality tools and appliances in the kitchen trump quantity any day. Even if you are at the casual or recreational as a home cook, the right implements go a long way in how the end result turns out.

Do stop by and say hi to Kyle and wish him well in Seattle!

Chow, for now, childrens!

Happy Fridaze, Childrens! How is you all beens? Let's talk about Loring Cafe, shall weez?

This morning, I was rollin' in the 'hood with Bookman. I am not a breakfast kind of gal; Bookman is a breakfast 3x a day if possible kind of guy. The sidewalk display with the menu turned our heads - that, and the delicious smells wafting from the door and out onto the street!

Once inside, it's a bit of theatrical shock. Impressive, at first - high ceilings, exposed beams and some lighting effects. We were shown to a window table, surrounded by plants - aesthetically, nice - but I hated the polyester feel of my napkin.

It felt like disco pants.

First up: a Popover ($3) which was plated with edible fruit garnish and served room temperature, accompanied by rosemary-infused lignonberry jam + apple butter. I laid down a thick layer of the latter and topped it with the former. Good times!

The Cuban-Style coffee ($5) was excellent, and Fresh Orange Juice ($4) was squeezed per my order. While I found it charming today, it's not a sustainable practice, nor do I expect it to be, since Friday was their second day for breakfast service. I do hope they up their game from navel oranges to Valencias or a citrus blend.

Under BREAKFAST STAPLES, I chose Last Night's Pizza ($7 - not sure why the website says $5) and opted for the Proscuitto w/ Goat Cheese; Bookman ordered Honeyed Granola w/ Fruit and Yogurt ($8). Both were beautifully plated, accurately described and fall-down delicious.

They were also portioned like appetizers.

Bookman's "staple" arrived first; mine was presented about three minutes later... This would be annoying under normal circumstances, but was baffling as we were the only two people actively eating during breakfast service in the entire joint. What the fully-staffed kitchen was doing, I have absolutely no idea, but I could see them all scurrying around in the open kitchen, doing everything but expediting our meal.

Ask a woman: size matters. Technique, quality, blah, blah, blah... yeah, that too. But honey, don't drop a word like "staple" which clearly implies my satisfaction... and leave me breathless, hungry and unfulfilled!

Even Bookman, who is pretty easy-going and streamlined of palate was befuddled. So glad he didn't order an Egg Scramble; it would not have surprised me if they'd brought out something made with a quail egg. Yep. That's how microscopic the portions are.

At least the Honeyed Granola option weighed more than four ounces.

My Pizza was delicious. It was a thin, cracker-like crust with cheese, proscuitto and some slightly oxidized herbs that had no flavor. Normally, I would have tasted them separately to determine what they were, but I was SO HUNGRY that I ate it too fast. Whatever it was did not register in the flavor profile at all.

The presentation of my pizza was bad from a psychological standpoint. I'm thinking thin-crust pizza, right? I'm served *half* of a petite oval that fits on a dish I normally associate with salad courses. Right away, I'm thinking, "Where's the other half?" and my order is cut into three wedges that weighed less than a hummingbird fart a piece.

Childrens, I cannot emphasize how head-scratchingly SMALL my half-pizza was. It made me wish I had a food scale with me. It's Oakland, so some of you may carry scales around in your pockets, or whatever. Unfortunately, I was without this fine morning; it's difficult for me to imagine that it even weighed four ounces. To have felt like I'd eaten a meal, and not just the first three bites of a meal... I would have to order three or four portions of the Pizza and a two orders of Granola, minimum, respectively (not in total).

The service was polite, slightly timid on one hand, warm and solicitous on the other.

Since I ate with my hands, I went back to the loo to clean up. I entered one of the two unisex bathrooms and stared at an ominous-looking black commode and a cabinet. The mirror was propped up on the floor. I cannot imagine stooping down to touch up my make up in that poorly-configured [Disneyfied] grotto.

I had to exit the loo with dirty hands and use the most poorly imagineered hand washing station I've seen to date. It's a communal sink with industrial spigots overhead. The soap is powdered and mounted on a dispenser that's at knee-height, far to your right. Water bounced out of the shallow/flat basin and splashed all over me.

And did I mention, you're washing your bathroom hands immediately adjacent to the walkway that leads to the back of the kitchen (if you head straight back) and into the open kitchen area (if you stay to the right)...? There is a porthole labeled "TRASH" where you can actually throw the paper waste that you've used to dry your [ostensibly] now-clean bathroom hands into the BOH storage and prep area of the kitchen.

All flash for too much cash; Loring needs to re-portion the menu and man up to see this gal again.

I fucking love caramels but one surefire way to keep me from eating them is to market them as "lard caramels"

― "Bellini." (DJP), Wednesday, March 6, 2013 4:59 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this actually sounds awesome to me

this is worth a listen:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144806987/the-friday-podcast-who-killed-lard

as a dude who is semi weight conscious but totally gym-phobic, controlling what I eat and in what proportion is the only thing keeping me from being the size of a house