Anonymous asked: you've told us about lots of disgusting things you have eaten, I'd like to hear more about disgusting PLACES you have eaten. Restaurant or anywhere else.
What a fantastic question anonymous reader person hiding behind a wall of virtual anonymity!
You know a lot of people would think that disgusting food logically comes from disgusting places and conversely great food comes from very clean and tidy places. A lot of people are wrong. Some of our best meals have come from places that look like they should be condemned. Take for instance the BBQ shack in the middle of nowhere Tennessee that was nothing more than four concrete walls, a dirty floor, a couple wooden picnic tables, and a giant roaring oven. It was just amazing. Life altering, even.
But places like that are often the exception rather than the rule. There is of course the Pastrami King (R.I.P.) of central California; a small mom’n’pop establishment situated in a decrepit repurposed building that at some point was likely part of a much larger burger franchise which served food so greasy and so unappealing that everyone in our traveling party could feel a strong pulse in our wrists as our hearts choked on the assault of sodium and choleterol that we inflicted on them. In retrospect turning around on the interstate and heading to the In & Out Burger several exits ago would have been a much wiser choice. Needless to say the staff at Pastrami King cared so little about the food and customers that to say they had let the entire place go to shit might be an understatement. It was pretty nasty.
We’ve eaten at punk houses cleaner than the Pastrami King. No, really, we have!
There was that time in Boston when after partying all night we slept on a cat-piss stained couch on the porch of some punk house in Brighton because it looked like the cleanest thing on the premises. For reasons unknown crusty punx really like to cook—we suspect something about their half-baked vegan/freegan/dumpster diving/smash the system/smash the state politics—and they prepared all sorts of dishes that were borderline inedible. Oh yeah, and also the short-lived Batcave squat that was situated on the beautiful, scenic Gowanus Canal of Brooklyn! Totally forgot about the time on the train we got into a long conversation about Zounds and The Mob and other gems from the CRASS Records catalog with some of the resident crusties. As we got off at Carroll Street they extended an invite to join them for a pot-luck dinner in said squat. The more crusty one was schlepping a garbage bag of bagels recovered from the thrash can of an Au Bon Pain.
Longtime readers of this web space should already be in the know about some of the fine establishments around Manhattan which have given us violent bouts of food poisoning. And OK, yes, we will admit it: for years we were unabashed late nite patrons of the infamous Taco Bell on 6th Ave. that was caught on camera with rats scurrying all over the place shitting in the refried beans and dog food grade beef filling. That is of course the same Taco Bell that exposed rampant system wide failure and corruption and set the NYC DOH on a blood thirsty face saving crusade that temporarily shuttered restaurants both big and small.
Little more digital ink needs to be spilled on the pukin’n’shittin’ marathon that went down at a Pizza Hut all you can eat lunch buffet in southern Illinois though it should be noted that the first guy to do a full reversal as they say in the IFOCE is actually now the proprietor of a hip Indie Rock label of some repute which will go nameless to protect those with weak stomachs and disposable income. OK so there’s that.
And finally we come to one of our favorites: the cafeteria at BOOMLAND! For those that have never been BOOMLAND!—with three convenient locations throughout the greater Missouri area—is a truckstop as well as a haven for fireworks enthusiasts (their motto: Every day is the Fourth of July at Boomland!) as well as collectors of shot glasses, knockoff Crocs, Native American throw blankets, t-shirts with prints of dogs playing poker, novelty bottles of hot sauce, velvet paintings, and all manner of useless tchotchkes. They also have a cafeteria too! And you bet your little ass we had the misfortune (bad judgment?) of ordering a country fried steak that tasted more like a country fried ball of shit drowned in gravy with a side of green beans and sauteed spinach, all of which looked like it had been sitting in a vat of motor oil for days. By the end of the meal it felt as if someone had actually purchased a bundle of Black Cats from the front room, which is the size of a supermarket and sells nothing but fireworks, and set them off in our gut. In retrospect that kind of a meal might have been a wiser choice.
And those, my friends, are some Disgusting Places I Have Eaten.
