Behold the Whatafarm burger, which according to alanbeam.net, via about.blank is "a burger ordered from the Whataburger chain and includes chicken, egg, cheese and bacon. 2 parts cow, 2 parts chicken, 1 part pig."
I'm all for the orgiastic multi-species chow down, what with my penchant for Kentucky burgoo (2 formats of cow -- old and young, lamb, pig, and chicken) and applaud the orderers for their gastronomic gumption. If I were being all harrumphy about it, I could note that the menu offers pig in sausage form and a fish filet as well and they opted for neither, but hey - Michelangelo didn't knock out the Sistine Chapel on his first jaunt up the scaffolding.
We salute you with all hooves, claws and trotters up!
Does anyone remember McDonald's coming out with some Happy Meal toys last year that were "American Idol" inspired? Apparently the toys were meant to represent musical genres, with named like Disco Dave and Rockin' Riley. I don't, but Devo was certainly aware of it.
According to Rolling Stone's music blog, Rock and Roll Daily, the 80's new wave band is suing the fast food giant because one of the toys, New Wave Nigel, is looks incredibly similar to what the band looked like in the early 1980's right down to the red hat. That wouldn't be a problem, except Devo had the hat, called the energy dome, copyrighted and trade marked.
According to Devo, they were never approached by McDonald's, and they are quite upset about it. I can't wait to hear about what happens next.
Do you remember the old McDonald's commercials for the Big Mac? They had that chant/rap about the special sauce and all that. Well, Micky D's wants to update that marketing campaign and they need your help.
As reported on Fast Food Critic, McDonald's wants you to enter a contest updating the Big Mac chant. You still have to use the special sauce, pickles, lettuce, etc, but they have all kinds of beats and samples you can use at their MySpace page. You can also get all the rules and more info there, too.
Just send in a video or audio tape of your remix, and be chosen by a panel of judges to be a semi-finalist, and your chant will be voted on by the public on July 22. The commercial will then air by the end of July.
I'm a big fan of Peruvian cuisine. It's considered one of the most varied in the world, with more dishes than French or any other. The reason for this is the cultural medley of Native Indians, Spanish, German, Italian, and other Europeans, African and Moors, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and more. One dish that I first tried in a Peruvian restaurant, but is common throughout much of Central and South America is salchipapas.
Salchipapas is a relatively simple dish of cut up fried hot dogs and French fries. Simple, until you add a few condiments like chopped pickled onions, aji hot pepper sauce, etc. Then this dish becomes one of the comfort foods of the region.
Here's a gallery of photos of salchipapas.
Gallery: Mama, make me some salchipapas
But for some really great photos of the dish, plus recipes, visit Laylita.com where Layla, an American who spent much of her life in Ecuador, has done salchipapas proud. You won't belive how hungry you'll get or how often you'll visit her site for the great recipes, photos, and stories. If only she wasn't married...
Are high gas prices getting to you? Jack in the Box wants you to know that they sympathize. On Thursday, June 26 the restaurant chain will be giving out two free tacos when you show them a recent gas receipt.
That's it. Just show the cashier a recent receipt from any gas station and you can get yourself two free tacos. The deal runs all day and you don't have to buy anything else. However, the receipt must be original, no copies allowed. Also, only one order of tacos per gas receipt.
If you live near a Jack in the Box, keep your gas receipts and have a free snack on Thursday. I'd probably do that if I lived anywhere near a Jack in the Box, but I don't think there are any of them on the east coast.
I've mentioned NYC Dirty Water Dogs, but there is another big dog on the block in NYC, Nathan's Famous. First seen on the boardwalk in Coney Island at the amusement park in 1916, they later started a small chain of Nathan's with arcades and more types of food than you can shake a dog at. They make some mean pastrami and corned beef sandwiches, but it's the hot dogs that they are known for. Just ask the thousands who come out every 4th of July for the International Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Competition.
A Nathan's was just a mile or three up the road on Central Ave in Yonkers, NY; where I spent my teen years. I visited them by bus after school a few times to play some pinball, but it was when I was 16 and got my driver's license and started borrowing my folks car, that I started chowing down on Nathan's dogs on a regular basis. These are griddled dogs, fat, crisp and browned outside, and juicy. They set my standard for what a dog should be. I finally came to realize that the best part is the Nathan's mustard. Over time it has become my favorite mustard of all. I try many, my fridge is full of literally dozens of jars, but the only one I buy time and again is Nathan's.
My favorite way to have Nathan's dogs is to grab two and a small fries. The fries are fat, crinkle cut wedges that are crispy outside, fluffy inside, and the perfect complement to the dogs. At Nathan's you have a condiment bar stocked with mustard, ketchup, relish, and sauerkraut so you can help yourself and design your own dog. The sauerkraut is fresh, crunchy, tart n' tangy. I load down the dogs with mustard and kraut, fill a few small paper cups with ketchup and mustard for the fries, and dig in. First a huge bite of frank, then dip a fry first in the Nathan's spicy mustard, then a dip in the Heinz ketchup as well. A great flavor combo where they balance each other out magnificently, with a root beer to wash it all down.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to get pizza out of a vending machine? I mean, you can get all kinds of other junk food, why not something that's actually satisfying?
You may soon be able to do just that. A company called Wonder Pizza is making a vending machine that cooks a pizza in under two minutes. This is a pretty new company, as evidenced by the fact that half the site is under construction, and it's not available in many places if it's available at all right now.
If vending machine pizza is real, then I hope it's good and that it succeeds. I really like the thought of this concept. What do you think of getting pizza from a vending machine?
*update: Sorry, I didn't check our archives and this gizmo has been covered already. However, doesn't a pizza vending machine deserve to be covered twice? ;)
Last May, I was invited to a press tasting at one of my local Starbucks, to try out their new breakfast sandwiches and the warming program. Over the course of two hours, I tried four different sandwiches, a warm chocolate cookie and a bagel that had gone for a ride through the warming oven as well. The woman who was presenting was passionate about these sandwiches and her energy was infectious. By the time I left I was ready to eat my breakfast at Starbucks every day!
Of course, I didn't end up eating there every day (I think I've had just one breakfast sandwich from Starbucks since that morning) and as it has turned out, neither did most other Americans. Back in February, word broke that they will be phasing out the breakfast sandwiches come fall. And now, Denny Marie Post, the top executive in charge of food and beverages at the coffee giant has left the company. They haven't filled the slot yet and appear to be looking for someone who can come up with new food that will be tasty and compelling enough to drive flagging sales.
AOL Health Editor Katherine Steinberg submitted the photo above for inclusion in the Midnight Sausage series, but we thought it was worthy of a post all its own.
"As I was wandering the streets of London foraging for food, I came across something even more foreign to me than the British slang -- the hot dog hamburger, or the 'express special'. It was so strange that I had to take a picture. I'm not sure what about this makes it faster than your average meal, but I do know that it comes with fries. But don't get too excited, judging by the recent price dip, it won't be popping up in your local deli anytime soon."
Has anyone seen or sampled this frankenfood in London or elsewhere? We'd love a first-hand account.
When McDonald's decided that they wanted to create an advertisement that "celebrated freshness," the ad agency they turned to dreamed up a billboard where the message was crafted entirely of living, growing lettuce. There is only one billboard of this kind, and it is in the Wrigleyville section of Chicago where it has created something of a stir. A horticulturist was consulted in the design process and it was planned so that birds can't eat the lettuce (there's no place for them to perch) and disrupt the verdant nature of the sign.
If you're curious how the board came together, someone has created a 45 second video that captures the growth of the lettuce over the course of three weeks. You can find the video after the jump.
It's obvious after reading posts like Marisa's ode to Philly Water Ice that the treat is a well-deserved one after a long, hot day in the city.
But should we be using it - along with pizza and candy - to bribe Philly youth?
In West Philly's 19th District, police will begin an initiative called "positive ticketing," in which they will award prizes (see: candy and junk food) to kids they see doing "good deeds" like helping elderly citizens across the street, or cleaning up a neighborhood block. So far, local businesses like 7-Eleven, Applebee's, Lucky Pizza, and Rita's Water Ice have donated food or gift certificates to the program.
It's important to encourage kids to do good deeds. But there are several problems I see with this method.
While perusing the food blogs tonight, I came across this post from So Good. I really like So Good because it generally focuses on the more humorous food related news. I'm not sure if this latest Papa John's ad is funny or creepy.
The original story is from The Fire Wire, which tells us about the direct marketing campaign the Papa John's is planning on putting into action. The ad is actually a small sticker that is stuck to your front door right under the peephole. The sticker creates an optical illusion that there is a pizza delivery person holding up a box with the local Papa Johns' delivery phone number on it.
I personally think this campaign is really creepy. I don't even like it when businesses leave fliers on my door handle or tucked in the screen door. This is going a bit too far for me, but then, I'm generally not a big fan of marketing in the first place. What's your take on this: creepy or cool?
How many times have you traveled and been outraged at the limited airport food options and the few snacks provided onboard? After experiencing a recent two-hour flight delay at West Palm Beach Airport and being stuck with only fast-food chains, I got excited about a recent New York Timesarticle, which focuses on a new trend whereby internationally recognized celebrity chefs are opening up restaurants at airport terminals around the world.
Earlier it seemed that there were just a few chefs, like Wolfgang Puck, who brought their food to airport terminals, but now there are a much larger number of celebrity chefs doing it. And, while chefs such as Wolfgang Puck brought fast-food versions of their food to airports, the current crop of chefs – Todd English, Gordon Ramsay, Nicolas Le Bec -- are opening bonafide, three-course meal, sit-down restaurants.
From New York's JFK to Geneva's International airport, you can now order foie gras (Gilles Dupont's Altitude), braised lamb (Ramsay's Plane Food), Kobe beef burgers (Todd English's Bonfire Steakhouse), and Valrhona chocolate fondue (Plane Food) while waiting for your flight. With the increase in flight delays and cancellations, this is sure to relieve a foodie's worst nightmare, which is being stuck at the airport for endless hours with no options but Burger King, Cinnabon, and Sbarro.
All of the McDonald's restaurants have stopped serving sliced tomatoes in all of its locations after various customers got sick in 16 different states in what might be an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. 23 people have gotten sick so far, so McDonald's doesn't want to take any chances.
Odd how all of this talk about the fast food industry and eating meat and all that, and what is making people sick is tomatoes. The chain says that they'll still keep serving grape tomatoes, but they aren't serving sliced tomatoes until further notice.
It's so exciting when carry-out pizza arrives at your doorstep, and terribly dissapointing if the pizza became smushed or the cheese slid to one side or some other disaster occurred. The Washington Post tested out various pizza parlors in the area to see which pizzas withstood the delivery process the best, and found seven that fared pretty well. Though the actual list applies mainly to those of us hanging out in the D.C. area, I'm wondering if there are any national chains notorious for delivering pizza that has fallen apart? And similarly, which service provides pizza that looks like it came straight from the oven?
Are high gas prices getting to you? Jack in the Box wants you to know that they sympathize. On Thursday, June 26 the restaurant chain will be giving out two free tacos when you show them a recent gas receipt.
All of the McDonald's restaurants have 
It's so exciting when carry-out pizza arrives at your doorstep, and terribly dissapointing if the pizza became smushed or the cheese slid to one side or some other disaster occurred. The 
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