Quantity Sometimes Beats Quality

I went out last night and enjoyed a few drinks. This morning/afternoon I regretted that decision. Luckily some genius invented the #3 at White Castle: 2 fries, 2 cokes, 10 sliders with cheese. This meal may have been invented for two people, but I beg to differ.

8 sliders later I suddenly felt amazing. I am a huge fan of good quality slow food but every now and then you have to give into the sack attack.

A good omen

After a strong start, work and school stepped in to slow things down a bit in here in the past couple of weeks. Don't worry, that will change this weekend as Erin and I are headed to New Hampshire for a bit of work and a bit of play. We're staying with Karl, so I can guarantee some great material will come out of the visit. Already, we have the Killington Brewfest on the calendar for tomorrow afternoon, and I'm sure we'll make a pit stop at Lou's in Hanover - I'll make sure Karl orders the cruller french toast.

Though that start's tomorrow, I knew it was a good sign when I walked out of my office building and saw this:

Street food! I instantly went into over drive. "Seriously?!", "YES", "The UN was bad enough for traffic, now this?!", "YES". Apparently they decided to randomly close down a block of 43rd street for a street fair today. The timing couldn't have been better:

• My sister had just been encouraging me to give my thoughts on the street food scene (I think we're both partial to the chicken and rice guys - the corner of 53rd and 6th has a very good one)
  
• I missed the Vendy Awards
• It's Friday, so no matter what I eat, it's likely I won't have to miss work as a result
  

 With that I dove into one of these tasty kabobs and some pita to clean up the mess. All in all, a good lunch and great start to the weekend. Let's hope I don't pay for it later.

Fair Food!

I must commend Sam on an excellent idea and some strong first posts. Frankly, I'm amazed that we didn't come up with this concept sooner, because it seems almost too perfect.

In honor of blog kick-off week, I knew I needed a strong performance. Luckily, this coincided with the one and only Tunbridge World's Fair in Tunbridge, VT. As you can imagine, a fair presents unique culinary options that can't be found anywhere else. The only thing left to do was to gather a bunch of health-conscious medical students, and show them a thing or two about eating at a fair.

I'll let the photos do most of the talking, but here's my solo encounter with the "bloomin' onion." I think this accurately describes my slowly fading optimism as I pushed close to the 2K calorie marker.

Not sure what's going on here, but I'm clearly in trouble

Yup, you guessed it, I ate the whole thing...

The lunch dilemna

Until Karl gives us his first post this weekend, I thought I'd discuss the lunch time scene in Midtown Manhattan. Lunching during the workweek always provides entertainment as there is a never ending debate about where and what to eat. More often than not I end up at the same place I ate yesterday - yesterday's lunch tasted pretty good after all.

To break the habit, I've created a mental list of a dozen or so places that I try and rotate through depending on my mood. One long standing favorite is 99 Cent Fresh Pizza on 43rd street between Lexington and 3rd Ave. For $1.07 (incl. tax) a slice you get a top notch piece of cheese pizza on a paper plate. For 2 slices you can have a bag to carry your lunch in, and for the big eaters, 3 slices buys you a pizza box with lunch. Talk about value for money!

The place has been around long enough to have built up a good following, and there is always a line out the door which is great because it means that the pizza never sits around, and that you are get a fresh out of the oven slice every time in less than 5 minutes. The genius of this place is it's efficiency of making pies and moving people through the door, so whatever you do, always stick to the cardinal rules:

1. Never order a topping. Ever. Seriously. You won't be happy since you'll end up waiting for 5 minutes in a really small space, and I won't be happy because now that fast moving line is at a standstill. 
2. Same goes for ordering whole pies. Even if you and 5 office mates think splitting a pizza is the way to go, it's not. There is no advantage to the whole pie. There's no discount (it's cheap already), and everyone - including you - ends up waiting a lot longer necessary.

Seriously though, check this place out next time your hungry near Grand Central, it's definitely the best bang for your buck anywhere near here...especially for high volume eaters like us - a whole pizza for $8? Yes, please.

Ready, set, eat!

I'm going to keep this one simple. After Erin decided to start a legit foodie blog over at hotplateconfidential.com I thought it would be kind of hilarious to do a parody about how much I eat. The idea started to get even better when I realized that not only do I eat a lot, but Karl (aka Too Tall) enjoys eating in a big way too. And with that, and some searching for a reasonable name - who knew there were already a million blogs titled "The Clean Plate Club" - we're ready to get started here at I ate the whole thing...

I know what you're thinking; "sure these guys claim to eat a lot, but so do I..." And you might be right, and while neither of us may be the next Kobayashi, we're not amateurs; between us we have won a pizza eating contest (the prize: more pizzas than you can eat), gone so crazy at an all you can eat BBQ joint that the waitress didn't know how to handle it, and participated in numerous other eating contests and bets. Karl can tell you all about how to lose a pie eating contest, and I can assure you that trying to eat 6 Cadbury Cream Eggs in 60 seconds is a terrible idea.

As I just got back from a vacation in Maine, I'll kick this thing off with a quick recount of one of the freshest lobster rolls I've eaten in ages. If you find yourself in Freeport, ME around lunch time you should take a short drive to Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster in South Freeport (http://www.harraseeketlunchandlobster.com) and grab a roll. This place is right on the water, and is really really good. If only they served beer...