The Rantings of Larry W. Hui

This past Friday I went to the mecca of chicken sandwiches, Chick Fil-A. This Christian food chain is often praised, but I personally have never been until now.

The closest one is in Racine, WI which is actually only about 30 mins from my house. On a visit to UIUC, I learned that there is now one in the student union. I guess they’re getting more common.

Their flagship product is the chicken sandwich. It is popular enough that McDonald’s decided to take a swing at them with the Southern Chicken Sandwich thing they introduced awhile back.

The sandwich I got was pretty good, especially for fast food. The chicken was well seasoned and quite moist for what appeared to be white meat. Quite tasty and possibly the best chicken I’ve had in fast food.

However there were some problems with the thing. First, the fixins are slim, I think there were only pickles on mine. And they were not robust pickle slices, but rather pretty anemic ones that didn’t give me pickle action with every bite. Secondly, the chicken patty is not bun shaped. It is chicken breast shaped (ish), leaving dead spots in the bun when you eat it. I hate this because bun tends to be unspectacular.

Other things I tried were their waffle fries (ours were soggy), lemonade (good, real lemon flavor), sweet tea (good), peach milkshake, and chicken nuggets (more of the same great chicken).

For the restaurant as a whole, I was fairly unimpressed. They do not seem to be current with the fast food method where things are made to order. Instead it appeared that pretty much everything was already premade, like McDonald’s used to do maybe 15 years ago, and it kinda sits there until someone buys it. Also I found the menu limited; there are maybe 5 different main course items: breaded chicken, grilled chicken, nuggets, wraps, and chicken salad. If you don’t like chicken, there’s no real reason to go here.

Price was a shade over 5 bucks for a value meal (more if you get a shake). Suitable for lunch but probably not enough food for a dinner. I think I will be happy going once or twice a year for that great chicken, but it’s certainly not destination dining. I would maybe bring a platter of the nuggets to a party because that’d be pimp. But that’s about it.

Recently I have been thinking about diagnosticing things. This is probably due to my dying car, which saddens me. I took it in to get a check engine light taken care of so I could emission test it, and while that was fixed, a whole list of other problems came up too. Problems that are much to expensive to fix. Instead the sable will be put to pasture.

The point is, I sort of knew something was wrong with the car (it was a bit creaky when I turned the steering wheel), but figured it was something simple like an axle needed grease (do axles even need grease? I don’t know). Instead it is a major mechanical malfunction. Who knew? Even after getting the car back (and mostly unfixed), I am actually pretty content driving it. Of course the fear that I might die because my wheel fell off has convinced me to get a car that works better.

What does that have to do with anything? Well it makes me think of two things. First, personal health. I rarely go to the doctor for checkups because they will probably tell me what I already know: I’m getting a bit fat but otherwise am doing ok. I also rarely go to the dentist because they just tell me to floss more and that I have no cavities (Tiffany claims this is genetics, I say it is because dentists are scam artists). If I did go to a doctor, I assume they might find something of mine that is irregular, and tell me to fix it, which would be rather expensive, and from what I feel about myself, completely unnecessary. I feel fine now. Unless something is going to fix my smelling, I’m not interested.

Secondly, mental health, and that is the tricky one. With a car or body, if something was wrong, you would kind of know. With the brain, if you are crazy, you would have no idea that you’re crazy. As mentioned in the Chuck Klosterman book I am reading now (Sex, Drugs, Cocoapuffs), the action of people using adjectives to describe themselves usually nullifies the effect of the word. For example if I called myself crazy, well I wouldn’t really be crazy because crazy people have no idea that what they’re doing is out of the norm. That’s what makes them crazy.

And that’s the problem. I wonder if I have any quirks that have yet to go unfounded, and how they are affecting my life. Tiffany tells me I don’t have too many (maybe she can elaborate) but she married me so I’m not sure she’s sane either. For a while I’ve been tempted to go see a psychiatrist just to see what they’d find. Of course it’s probably not a simple one session thing so I’d have to keep going back and that’s how they get you.

For a long time I’ve wanted to keep a record of what I eat. Not just spectacular or terrible things, but everything. In the old days I figured it would be a page I constantly update, or a blog, but that seems too cumbersome.

Now, thanks to the technology of Twitter, I have a perfect medium to do that. So here it is, you can read it if you want. But really, it’s for my own personal enjoyment.

http://twitter.com/whatlarryeats

Of course I’ll still update my usual twitter too (which you can read on the right. I wish it didn’t display @ replies) There may even be some overlap.

Yesterday I went to Sweet Tomatoes, coupon in hand. I sometimes forget what that place is named, calling it Rotten Tomatoes, Green Tomatoes, or any variation but the actual name. It is not on purpose, I have some mental block that prevents me from remembering the name. I also have a block that prevents me from knowing what the product of 8 and 7 is.

Anyway I had gone once before and thought it was ok. As an establishment, I don’t have anything against salad bars, let alone salad bar buffets. I love certain vegetables and don’t mind eating them. I’ve been known to get the salad bar at Bob Chinns, and when it was cheaper, I would get the salad bar at work. And don’t get me started on soup, I love soup and it is possibly my #2 food category behind noodles.

This time around I had two major gripes with the place and one minor one. The first problem is the price. We went for dinner and the total came out to 27 bucks. That’s for two dinners and two drinks (the mother in law benefited from the BOGO coupon we had). The fact that you have to buy a drink with your buffet is a minor problem, but the 11 bucks they charge for a salad buffet is plain wrong.

The second problem is that the salad buffet isn’t even great. I would say it’s good, with some exotic items like jicama, crinkle cut beets, and butternut squash that’s shaved to look like cheese. But aside from that the rest of it is standard items you could find in a Dominick’s salad bar. The most egregious error is the omission of artichokes. I love artichokes and to not have them in a salad bar (especially for 11 bucks) is a crime against humanity. i tried to get past this but I couldn’t. When I pay for premium salad bar, I expect artichokes.

The minor problem is that the place is mostly for vegetarians or girls. Meat is pretty hard to find and I was fortunate to hunt down some pepperoni pizza, beef chili (low fat), and chicken noodle soup (the most literal interpretation of the soup I’ve ever had). It is probably not in that place’s mission statement to serve lots of meat, but at the same time that means I will find it a bit lacking.

On the plus side, the soups I had were pretty good and the baked items were excellent. I enjoyed their interpretation of Mac and Cheese for a few bites. At the end of the day though, there just wasn’t anything that said to me, “let’s come back here and pay 11 bucks for salad, soup, and small hot bar”. And that’s the problem.

To fix this place I would charge less or include drink with purchase, and add more meat to everything. Until then my salad bar needs will be met by Bob Chinn’s, OCB, Golden Corral (I think they have one), or even Jason’s Deli in the old hooters by hawthorn mall.

Made a tough decision today, required lots of prayer and reflection. Actually not really. A couple days back I got an email saying my domain name was expiring and I should renew. Today I went through the process of doing so.

When I was checking out it asked me how many years I wanted to renew it for. It’s about 10 bucks a year and there’s no bulk discount. At first I selected 2 years just because I didn’t want to be hassled with it next year. Then I got to thinking if I really wanted to spend the 10 bucks/year for domain name, plus the 25/year (I think) for webhosting.

I’ve been on a cheap binge lately. So the answer was inevitably no, especially given that there’s some free options out there (of course there were several years ago too when I started this). My only major concern was having a place to put pictures since I might become a photo nerd/lens jockey, but there’s flickr or facebook for that. And nowadays I don’t write enough to justify keeping the space.

So in the end I just reupped for 1 year. Before that year is up, my webhosting expires in March so I’ll be moving on to other, free-er options. Maybe I’ll bring Xanga back, they sure need the help.