(no subject)
I woke up this morning around 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. I just realized it must have been my subconscious notifying me that today is my LJ's 5th birthday! Let's reflect on where I was back then:
On April 5, 2002, I:
- was still single, albeit engaged
- was living in Atlanta with geebs and JS, a veritable bachelor geek Ground Zero
- had never left the United States before
- was still a DJ at the greatest radio station in America, WREK 91.1FM
- was still in the habit of going out to at least one show a week
- was self-conscious about eating in nice restaurants because I couldn't hold a fork properly
- tended not to drink at that point (beer was still 6% max allowance in GA back then)
- spent so much time in L5P I was mistaken for a Wax N Facts employee twice
- tended to write long incoherent rambles on newsgroups
Well, regarding the latter its nice to see some things haven't changed over times, just the medium. For everything else though, wasn't it such a different life? Where would this journal be without unending travel diaries or critiques of restaurants 95% of you will never be within 500 miles of or the literary joys of unintended Belgian ale aftereffects? Really, doesn't it make you want to cry?
In honor of this occasion, here's an old review. clevemire recently mentioned on geebs' LJ my mid-20s goal of eating at every Atlanta burrito joint. Here's an old post I made to my former stomping ground git.talk.grimstari back in the summer of 2001, I believe. The hydra-headed beast that is Moe's (and a beast it truly is) still had only one location back in those days, on Peachtree in Buckhead in the Garden Hills area. Even for those of you who have never eaten at such places, it might be of interest to compare my slightly more gonzo writing style from back then, which was pretty much unappreciated by virtually all of the Georgia Tech civilization (and rightly so). Read on and realize: as voluminous as I write now, IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE.
so in my quest to eat at every burrito joint in this city, i went to
burrito bros, the place i had shed many a trash-cleaning-injun tear
over several weeks ago when i had reported it had slayed the piedmont
zesto as if it were an elf at krug's place on friday night [reference to
a former roommate, who hosted weekly role-playing events at his place]--and i had
a surprising insight. all this and more, on this week's installment of:
[cymbal crash and "Viva Del Santo"-style reverb]
BURRITO QUEST!!
[echo: QUEST Quest quest etc]
two places this week, moe's on peachtree and the aforementioned burrito
bros. in tribute to the late vanessa williams, i'm gonna save the best
for last:
moe's: anthong [geebs]and i showed up there on mon night, en route to phipps plaza
(my home away from home, natch) [irony] to see the limey motion picture "sexy
beast". this place is...umm...well, its one of those places that made me
embarrassed to sit in there, due to all of the paintings of (mostly dead)
rock stars with captions underneath that convert their lyrics into paeans
to burrito lust (marvin gaye: "let's get it on...with a flour tortilla!").
i think my iq dropped 20 points for walking in the door, one point each
additional minute (i think i'm in the negatives now, although maybe i was
already that way before i started--well, i've got an excuse now). but enough
about the ambience...the setup is similar to willy's on n decatur, in that
its a cafeteria-type food line, where you watch them prepare your food. i
can handle this at subway, but there's something about burrito manufacturing
that gives me the creeps. the burrito itself (i had a vegetarian with
rice, black beans, cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, and lettuce for
$4.29) tasted decent but bland. the chips and salsa were even less to speak
of, and the chips came in that brightly assorted color combination that th'
kids seem to be fascinated with these days. now i like blue corn chips, but
these multi-color combos look like they're just spray-painting tostitos--i
know some doctor is gonna find out that they're carcinogenic...overall,
forgettable for food, unforgivable for decor--oh, how could i forget,
everything is named after tv references with non-sequitir relevance (my
burrito was named the "art vandalay")--it just goes to show that buckhead
central can't be trusted (as if there were any doubt). oh, by the way, phone
up phipps plaza to hear the recorded voice say "sexy beast"--its more
entertaining than the movie itself...
burrito bros: so i decide to check the place out and drive there tonight.
i walk in the door (which does indeed say "burriteria", jbarkle, it wasn't
a hallucination) and find out that its still owned by zesto [a longstanding
atlanta fast food diner type chain with about 4 or 5 spots]. i had considered
that possibility when i saw the exterior layout was almost identical and the
ice cream cones were still in place. its san francisco mexican with zesto
ice cream--not exactly the most common association. but zesto actually does
pretty well with non-burger items (their gyro at ponce is pretty good
considering they use something more akin to ranch dressing than tzaziki sauce,
and the greek salad is also worthwhile) and i guess this area seemed like
the most appropos locale to experiment extensively with mexican (not too far
away from buford hwy, and even closer to el charro, the best-kept secret in
the city for mediocre mexican food). i walk in the door and realize that my
eyesight is getting exponentially worse, because i can barely make out the
menu items and i certainly can't see what goes into each menu item. i notice
the top burrito on the list is the "big juan"--i find it a safe rule of thumb
to never eat anything that has a person's name in the title (exceptions to
the rule: sloppy joes and "keith's favorite" sandwich at jake's) so i saw the
next thing down was the burrito grande (or something like that). i order that
with my choice of beans (black) and meat (steak). i've either got a kid fresh
from the styx behind the counter, or else he thinks i'm a moron (maybe he saw
me at moe's),because he hands me one of those electronic coasters and explains
to me that the reason he gave me that is that it will light up when my food
is ready--he starts to elaborate until i tell him i understand--good thing
because i'd hate to get into a fistfight with the mother-and-child combo who
are the only other people in the whole friggin' place over my order. i ordered
water to drink so they gave me a cheap plastic cup to use for self-service,
and the guy actually walked out from the counter to tell me that the water is
"hidden" at the soft drink dispenser--considering i'm no stranger to the
scene, i know that its a tab, not one of the main outlets. putting the yokel
in his place, i sit down with my coaster (claim on the front: representing
the next wave in coaster paging technology (!)) and soak in the aura. they're
playing latino music that sounds like univision soap opera themes (actually,
much better than moe's classic rawkisms and el myr's relentless replays of
london calling). an oscillating fan is moving, yet its stuck in a point where
it hits the wall as soon as it starts its movement, so it has an arc of about
5 degrees (covering nobody in the restaurant, naturally) and makes an
amazingly loud clicking noise every 2 seconds when it hits the wall--i start
laughing uncontrollably over the fact that everyone is content to let it do
this and then my coaster goes all simon so i know its chow-time. they ask me
if i want hot sauce, and when i say yes they give me a tube like they use
at tortilla's for the salsa--it also comes with chips of the multicolored
variety--i swear i'm scared of the consequences of consuming these things...
the burrito's actually pretty good, not too filling but better than average.
i'm not necessarily going out of my way to eat there but you could definitely
do worse...
so back to the original comment, zesto is gone, but its there under an
associated name. zesto's dead they say...long live zesto!
And if you're dying to hear more burrito talk from me, here's a Chipotle review I wrote for a food LJ a few years ago. Speaking of which, I'm still up for discussions on where to get a good burrito in SF when we visit in a few weeks. ikahana has been an immeasurable help, and I've got the Time Out guide to SF also but welcome all suggestions. And with that I'll stop (not least because its actually time for me to get ready to go to work). Happy pseudo-birthday, me!
On April 5, 2002, I:
- was still single, albeit engaged
- was living in Atlanta with geebs and JS, a veritable bachelor geek Ground Zero
- had never left the United States before
- was still a DJ at the greatest radio station in America, WREK 91.1FM
- was still in the habit of going out to at least one show a week
- was self-conscious about eating in nice restaurants because I couldn't hold a fork properly
- tended not to drink at that point (beer was still 6% max allowance in GA back then)
- spent so much time in L5P I was mistaken for a Wax N Facts employee twice
- tended to write long incoherent rambles on newsgroups
Well, regarding the latter its nice to see some things haven't changed over times, just the medium. For everything else though, wasn't it such a different life? Where would this journal be without unending travel diaries or critiques of restaurants 95% of you will never be within 500 miles of or the literary joys of unintended Belgian ale aftereffects? Really, doesn't it make you want to cry?
In honor of this occasion, here's an old review. clevemire recently mentioned on geebs' LJ my mid-20s goal of eating at every Atlanta burrito joint. Here's an old post I made to my former stomping ground git.talk.grimstari back in the summer of 2001, I believe. The hydra-headed beast that is Moe's (and a beast it truly is) still had only one location back in those days, on Peachtree in Buckhead in the Garden Hills area. Even for those of you who have never eaten at such places, it might be of interest to compare my slightly more gonzo writing style from back then, which was pretty much unappreciated by virtually all of the Georgia Tech civilization (and rightly so). Read on and realize: as voluminous as I write now, IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE.
so in my quest to eat at every burrito joint in this city, i went to
burrito bros, the place i had shed many a trash-cleaning-injun tear
over several weeks ago when i had reported it had slayed the piedmont
zesto as if it were an elf at krug's place on friday night [reference to
a former roommate, who hosted weekly role-playing events at his place]--and i had
a surprising insight. all this and more, on this week's installment of:
[cymbal crash and "Viva Del Santo"-style reverb]
BURRITO QUEST!!
[echo: QUEST Quest quest etc]
two places this week, moe's on peachtree and the aforementioned burrito
bros. in tribute to the late vanessa williams, i'm gonna save the best
for last:
moe's: anthong [geebs]and i showed up there on mon night, en route to phipps plaza
(my home away from home, natch) [irony] to see the limey motion picture "sexy
beast". this place is...umm...well, its one of those places that made me
embarrassed to sit in there, due to all of the paintings of (mostly dead)
rock stars with captions underneath that convert their lyrics into paeans
to burrito lust (marvin gaye: "let's get it on...with a flour tortilla!").
i think my iq dropped 20 points for walking in the door, one point each
additional minute (i think i'm in the negatives now, although maybe i was
already that way before i started--well, i've got an excuse now). but enough
about the ambience...the setup is similar to willy's on n decatur, in that
its a cafeteria-type food line, where you watch them prepare your food. i
can handle this at subway, but there's something about burrito manufacturing
that gives me the creeps. the burrito itself (i had a vegetarian with
rice, black beans, cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, and lettuce for
$4.29) tasted decent but bland. the chips and salsa were even less to speak
of, and the chips came in that brightly assorted color combination that th'
kids seem to be fascinated with these days. now i like blue corn chips, but
these multi-color combos look like they're just spray-painting tostitos--i
know some doctor is gonna find out that they're carcinogenic...overall,
forgettable for food, unforgivable for decor--oh, how could i forget,
everything is named after tv references with non-sequitir relevance (my
burrito was named the "art vandalay")--it just goes to show that buckhead
central can't be trusted (as if there were any doubt). oh, by the way, phone
up phipps plaza to hear the recorded voice say "sexy beast"--its more
entertaining than the movie itself...
burrito bros: so i decide to check the place out and drive there tonight.
i walk in the door (which does indeed say "burriteria", jbarkle, it wasn't
a hallucination) and find out that its still owned by zesto [a longstanding
atlanta fast food diner type chain with about 4 or 5 spots]. i had considered
that possibility when i saw the exterior layout was almost identical and the
ice cream cones were still in place. its san francisco mexican with zesto
ice cream--not exactly the most common association. but zesto actually does
pretty well with non-burger items (their gyro at ponce is pretty good
considering they use something more akin to ranch dressing than tzaziki sauce,
and the greek salad is also worthwhile) and i guess this area seemed like
the most appropos locale to experiment extensively with mexican (not too far
away from buford hwy, and even closer to el charro, the best-kept secret in
the city for mediocre mexican food). i walk in the door and realize that my
eyesight is getting exponentially worse, because i can barely make out the
menu items and i certainly can't see what goes into each menu item. i notice
the top burrito on the list is the "big juan"--i find it a safe rule of thumb
to never eat anything that has a person's name in the title (exceptions to
the rule: sloppy joes and "keith's favorite" sandwich at jake's) so i saw the
next thing down was the burrito grande (or something like that). i order that
with my choice of beans (black) and meat (steak). i've either got a kid fresh
from the styx behind the counter, or else he thinks i'm a moron (maybe he saw
me at moe's),because he hands me one of those electronic coasters and explains
to me that the reason he gave me that is that it will light up when my food
is ready--he starts to elaborate until i tell him i understand--good thing
because i'd hate to get into a fistfight with the mother-and-child combo who
are the only other people in the whole friggin' place over my order. i ordered
water to drink so they gave me a cheap plastic cup to use for self-service,
and the guy actually walked out from the counter to tell me that the water is
"hidden" at the soft drink dispenser--considering i'm no stranger to the
scene, i know that its a tab, not one of the main outlets. putting the yokel
in his place, i sit down with my coaster (claim on the front: representing
the next wave in coaster paging technology (!)) and soak in the aura. they're
playing latino music that sounds like univision soap opera themes (actually,
much better than moe's classic rawkisms and el myr's relentless replays of
london calling). an oscillating fan is moving, yet its stuck in a point where
it hits the wall as soon as it starts its movement, so it has an arc of about
5 degrees (covering nobody in the restaurant, naturally) and makes an
amazingly loud clicking noise every 2 seconds when it hits the wall--i start
laughing uncontrollably over the fact that everyone is content to let it do
this and then my coaster goes all simon so i know its chow-time. they ask me
if i want hot sauce, and when i say yes they give me a tube like they use
at tortilla's for the salsa--it also comes with chips of the multicolored
variety--i swear i'm scared of the consequences of consuming these things...
the burrito's actually pretty good, not too filling but better than average.
i'm not necessarily going out of my way to eat there but you could definitely
do worse...
so back to the original comment, zesto is gone, but its there under an
associated name. zesto's dead they say...long live zesto!
And if you're dying to hear more burrito talk from me, here's a Chipotle review I wrote for a food LJ a few years ago. Speaking of which, I'm still up for discussions on where to get a good burrito in SF when we visit in a few weeks. ikahana has been an immeasurable help, and I've got the Time Out guide to SF also but welcome all suggestions. And with that I'll stop (not least because its actually time for me to get ready to go to work). Happy pseudo-birthday, me!