You can't spell scrapple without "crap"

I was working at an Internet start-up about antiques a few years ago. I can't remember how the subject even came up, but I mentioned that I liked scrapple to a co-worker. She made one of those faces of disgust when I told her what it was made of and she said that she wouldn't eat anything that had the word "crap" in it.

For the uninitiated, scrapple is a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty consisting of pork and cornmeal. It is like mush but is then fried and usually served at breakfast like bacon or sausage. What makes it unappealing to some is that the pork part of scrapple can be any part of the pig. It can consist of pig hearts, tongue, liver, anything that is left over. The saying about scrapple is that it is made of "everything but the oink".

Well this past weekend, I went to visit some relatives in Philadelphia and then decided to take a day trip to Lancaster. I love to eat at the Amish style restaurants where I can get my fill of fried chicken, buttered noodles, and vegetables. I especially like the sweet dried corn. In fact that was one of the main reasons to head to Pennsylvania Dutch was so I can buy a few boxes of Cope's Corn. They are hard to find outside of Pennsylvania Dutch and when you do, they cost quite a bit.


But getting back to scrapple. The first stop was for breakfast at Dienner's Country Restaurant in
Ronks, Pennsylvania. They offer a breakfast buffet that is not as varied as an Old Country Buffet but they offer many dishes from the area. The most important dish to me was the scrapple. They offered the scrapple made with pork and for the more health conscience I guess, they had a turkey one too ("everything but the gobble?"). They also had pancakes, sausage, home fries, scrambled eggs, fruit, oatmeal, grits, biscuits and sausage gravy, smoked sausage, french toast, and few more items. The quality is not bad and it only cost $5.95. By the way did I mention they had scrapple?

After a big breakfast, I headed out to do some shopping. There are quite a few outlet stores in the area. The place is geared towards tourists with lots of shopping and family chain restaurants. It is quite a dizzying mix when you consider that many Amish residents live in the area and can be seen on the main roads riding their horse and buggy. What I find kind of amusing is that there are some Amish that will wear most of the traditional dark clothing but will wearing Croc shoes or driving a mini-van. Then again, I shouldn't be making any stereotypes. While at Dienner's the waitress came up to me and seeing that I am Asian asked if I had food like this in my country. Being the 6th generation living in the United States, I could have made a smart remark but refrained so and just said that I had been to that restaurant before.

Just before leaving Lancaster to head back to New York, I decided to get an early dinner. I had been to many other Amish family style restaurants like Miller's, Plain and Fancy, Stoltzfus, and others. I was looking to at least get some dried sweet corn and not pay the arm and a leg that some of those buffets charge. Granted many of those places offered discount coupons on the Internet and travel guides but they still can be pretty pricey.

After looking at menus and reviews, I chose to go to The Family Cupboard. The reviews on Yelp were pretty good and someone mentioned that they had the dried corn there. Plus their buffet was under $11. I got there around 3:30pm, just before they were switching over to dinner. Maybe that was the reason but the food and choices were only OK. They had fried chicken, baked chicken, chicken and dumplings, beef tips in gravy, ham, and an assortment of vegetables from mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, beets, beans, and sweet shoe peg corn.

But they didn't have the dried sweet corn. What a bummer! And to make matters worse was the food was only OK. Except for the fried chicken and only by a little bit, you can do just as well at Old Country Buffet. The buttered noodles looked exceptionally vile, just a heap of over cooked pasta that was disintergrating in to itself. It wasn't terrible and the people were nice but there are so many other places to try in the area that I won't be heading back.

They're baaaaack!

Holy crap! While driving to a McDonald's to use their free Wi-Fi to download the day's copy of the Sunday newspaper on to my Kindle, I saw a sign that they were selling the McRib sandwich. I had already eaten but I made a mental note to come back another day.

The McRib sandwich is McDonald's faux pork sandwich, consisting of processed pork that is molded into the shape of mini-pork ribs served on a bun with lots of sweet barbecue sauce. The sandwich is not a regular item on the McDonald's menu and would sporadically show up for limited times around the country. The sandwich has a cult like following with people tracking and traveling around the U.S. to partake in the McRib.

Last year McDonald's had brought back the McRib nation-wide for a limited time around this time of year and had a huge success with it. I guess due the popularity they are bringing the sandwich back again nation-wide this year for a 3-week period until November 14th.

There has been no word so far if the McRib will become a regular item on the menu or if this will be an annual event like their Shamrock shakes or cherry baked pies. Maybe I will celebrate Halloween with a McRib meal. Now Count Floyd, that's scary.

Wegmaniacs

Not only do I like to try different restaurants, I also like to go visit local supermarkets when I travel. I look for items that are local to the area or not available where I live. So when I heard that a Wegman's was opening up their first store in Massachusetts it kind of piqued my interest.


I must say that I was more interested in seeing if this upstate New York grocery chain was going to carry white hots more than anything else. I haven't had one of those white veal hot dogs in about 2 years and I was even thinking of traveling over 500 miles round trip to pick up a box until I thought better of it. With the price of gas it would just be smarter to have them shipped to me. Then again, no one ever said I was smart...

Still, going to Northboro, MA was about an hour away from where I was this weekend. Just to make sure that a trip to Wegmans would not be all in vain, I sent an e-mail to the company asking if this store was going to carry the white hots. To my surprise they promptly replied that they would.

I guess that I shouldn't have been surprised that they got back to me so fast. After looking at their website and reading stories about the grocery chain they are quite popular to shop at and to work for. They are very big on not just low prices but on great customer service. It looked like people even get fanatical about the stores, kind of like those people who travel the country going to Chik-Fil-A restaurants.


According to some news reports, the store was involved with town officials about having enough police around to help with the extra traffic. At some grand openings they have had over 30,000 people show up on the first day. I must admit I was getting kind of excited about this. How can a supermarket generate this kind of interest? It sounds insane, but at least I will be able to get my white hots.

This new store is the first in Massachusetts and it is one of the largest in the whole state. It took Wegmans a dozen years to move into the Bay State and supposedly the other grocery stores tried to lock up leases on places that Wegmans was looking to move so they could not move into the state. The reports also said that Wegmans can be a game changer in the area as they not only have thousands more items on their shelves but they price some of their items for the whole year!

The store's grand opening was at 7am but I wasn't going to get up early to travel an hour for a grocery store. I got to the area around noon time. I didn't get to the store until about 12:30pm. For 30 minutes I waited in traffic to get into the parking lot. The whole place was packed. There were lots of police officers to help with the traffic but there were too many cars heading to the store.

When I did get into the parking lot, there were officers there too to help direct traffic. They even had people on those Segways running around the parking lot. I ended up parking about 1/4 mile away from the store.

People were streaming in and out of Wegmans. It was pretty funny to think about it, that all of this was for a grocery store. The aisles were packed with people and sometimes you bumped your cart into someone in front of you or you got hit yourself. One lady accidentally hit a little girl, it wasn't a hard hit but the 6-year was on the verge of crying a tear but not before giving one of the nastiest dirty looks at the lady with the cart. It was pretty funny.


It was hard to more around but I did pass by the food court section. They were serving all kinds of hot foods and even had a dim sum bar. I just didn't feel like fighting through the mob to take a look.

Not being a fan of crowds I used my store map to go find my white hots which were in the dairy section at the back of the store. When I got there I didn't see them. They had all kinds of hot dogs, but then at the bottom was an empty space with a sign in front of it. It said, "Sorry to our upstate New York fans, but they were sold out. New shipment, tomorrow".

To say the least I was pretty bummed. I was not able to get the white hots but it was so busy that I really couldn't see what else they had in the store. The few quick glances at items as I worked my way through the crowd were some pretty good prices and items that are not usually available in Boston nor New York city.

The trip was an experience. It is hard to imagine that so many people are fans of a supermarket, that they even call themselves "Wegmaniacs" and even have t-shirts made up for them. The prices looked pretty good so I will go back again, at least to get some white hots.

Bay State Gabby's

Gabby's restaurant is pretty new, they opened up January, 2011. I first learned of the restaurant when I received a 1/2 off email offer from Living Social. I had looked at the restaurant's website and the menu looked pretty good, and with $15 for a $30 gift certificate it looked like it was worth a gamble.

It wasn't until after I had purchased the certificate did I find a review on Gabby's. Boy it looked like I might have been taken in. There was a lone review and it wasn't pretty. I then noticed that there were filtered reviews and so I went looking to see what they said. Those reviews were a bit more positive but I guess reviews get filtered because these reviewers might be shills.

Well I had already spent the money for the certificate so I went with a lot of intrepidation. Things didn't really look better as it was 6pm on a Wednesday evening and the place was empty. The hostess promptly greeted and seated us. As I sat down, I remembered the other review talked about a bad smell. I mentioned this to my friend and before we looked at our menus we were sniffing the air like a bunch of basset hounds. Good thing nobody was around to see us, but we didn't notice a thing.

When we got our menus they looked exactly like what was posted on the website. It definitely did not look like it was put together as a school project as someone on Yelp.com had said. I was kind of wondering if the other review was for the same restaurant. The waitress who was also the hostess came by to fill up our water glasses and to put two warm rolls in front of us. The rolls weren't freshly baked but were heated up just before serving. I thought that was a nice little touch and we were given little bread plates.

There was quite a few Italian dishes on the menu, but we were more interested in trying the Argentinian cuisine. For appetizers we tried a beef and chicken empanda. They were kind of small but pretty tasty. The pastry crust was flaky and tender and the beef empanada was filled with a flavorful ground beef. The chicken empanada was filled with white meat and was a tad dry.

For the main course I ordered the Tira De Asado which is short ribs and my friend ordered the Pastel De Papa, an Argentinian casserole. We both got a house salad with our entrees. The salad was just a basic garden salad with a vinaigrette. Nice, but nothing special.

The meal was going well so far but it was kind of un-nerving to be the only patrons in the place. The hostess did say that they are busier on the weekends and when they have live entertainment.

Our dishes came fairly quickly. My dish consisted of 2 short ribs sliced sideways about 1/4 inch thick. I had selected the rice pilaf and the vegetable of the day was grilled vegetables. My friend's dish consisted of the casserole which looked like Shepherd's pie, garlic mashed potatoes, and the grilled vegetables. We split the casserole and the short ribs so we could sample both.

The casserole tasted just like Shepherd's pie. Mashed potatoes on top and on the bottom with ground beef in the middle. There were no vegetables in the ground beef. It was OK but I wouldn't bother ordering it again. As for my dish, I had made the right call. The short ribs were grilled and you could taste the charcoal flavor on them. And the chimichurri sauce that comes with the dish complimented the ribs very well. The hostess had said that the sauce was usually served with beef but some people had asked for it to use as a dipping sauce as well for the empanadas.

The grilled vegetables were also a big hit. The vegetables were string beans, carrots, and asparagus. They were lightly grilled with light grill marks and not over cooked. They also had a nice charcoal flavor to them.

Even though I was full, I did order dessert. Partly to try another dish, and partly to make sure that I spent all the money on my certificate. The list of desserts wasn't too much but they did have flan so I ordered that. The waitress asked if I wanted some caramel sauce on it and I thought that sounded good. When I got the flan, I must say it didn't look overly appetizing. The flan was a decent size piece but the caramel on top was a scoop that was not warmed. Since it was not warm nor liquidity it actually look kind of like a scoop of poop on top. Undaunted I still tried it and if was fine. The flan was not too sweet as other restaurants but the caramel could have used a bit of warming up. Not just for a smoother texture but it really didn't look too good. My friend kept laughing about what it looked like.

Overall, the whole experience was quite pleasant, I was impressed by my dish and would come back. The prices were reasonable and the chimichurri sauce is kind of addictive on the ribs. The casserole was OK, but you can get better elsewhere. Still I am kind of curious about the Yelp.com review, the only thing that seemed to match what was written was that they have mozzarella sticks. Maybe the restaurant read the review and fixed things.

One Dollar, Two Brothers

The New York Sharks were invited see the Broadway show "Lombardi". The play is about NFL coaching great Vince Lombardi. The producers of the show gave the team some tickets and the Sharks offered to promote the play on their website.

It had been quite a while since I saw a Broadway show and while this one did get some very good reviews, the thought of 40 Sharks attending a play can be quite entertaining. Usually when the team gets together off the football field something happens. Road trips can be quite the interesting tale and sometimes it is not the fault of the players, stuff just seems to follow them. Case in point, we haven't been back to Canada since the team bus tried to barrel through the border crossing without stopping. The Canadian Mounties chased the bus about 2 miles past the checkpoint to stop it. The bus driver thought that guards were waving at them to go by without stopping. Imagine what the authorities thought when they asked who they were and the answer came back a women's professional football team.

I took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan. The train was already filling up with Ranger fans for the Rangers-Capitals playoff game at Madison Square Garden. I hadn't been to the city in quite a while and I was looking forward to hitting a few places, mostly Gray's Papaya.

Gray's Papaya is one of those uniquely New York city places that serve hot dogs and papaya drinks. This combination started in 1932 with Papaya King and soon spread to many imitators. What got my attention with Gray's Papaya the first time was that they were selling hot dogs for only $0.75. The prices then went up to $1 per dog or you could get a recession special of two hot dogs and a drink for only $2.50. But the last 5 years inflation has hit the place and the last time I had checked the recession special was over $5. It was no longer the great bargain but the all-beef hot dogs are still one of the better tasting ones around.

I walked out of Penn Station and headed uptown on 8th Avenue towards Gray's Papaya, but horrors, they were closed! I later found out that not all Gray's Papaya went out but just this one. I was bummed. Not only was I hungry for a good hot dog (which is most of the time anyway) but I didn't want to spend a lot of money to get a bite to eat before the play.

It didn't take me too long to find a replacement though. It wasn't a hot dog but a block further was 2 Bros. Pizza.



Over the past few years, someone figured out that you can make money by selling pizza for as little as $1 a slice in New York City. And that is not $1 plus tax, it is $1 total. If you want to go crazy you can order 2 slices and a soda for $2.75. And for those Rockefeller types, pepperoni slices go for $1.50.

Of course at that price, you have to not just sell a lot of pizza, but you have to sell a really big lot of pizza. You have to find the balance of selling a pizza that was not only cheap in price but good enough for people to buy it. And surprisingly, 2 Bros. has found that balance.

The place was pretty busy around 6pm when I got there. Behind the counter they were churning out pizza pies like crazy. With a very limited menu service was pretty quick.

I ordered on slice of plain pizza and it was a decent size slice and quite surprisingly was not bad. Not a great tasting slice but quite serviceable. I would make this a destination if I wanted a pizza and was in the area. What I don't understand is how a place like Papa John's can even exist. I won't include Dominio's as supposedly they have improved their pizza and I haven't had that for years. But I did have Papa John's during this year's Super Bowl and it was pretty bad.

After eating my slice, I walked over to the theater in plenty of time. 40 players and staff of the Sharks showed up for the play. The theater was quite small and we definitely took up a large portion of the audience. And with most of the players wearing their blue jerseys, we definitiely stood out.

The stage set-up for Lombardi was quite interesting. The theater was quite small and the stage was in the center of the theater. Guess that is why they call it theater in the round, duh!

The play was quite good. The acting was top notch and all of the Sharks enjoyed the show. Many of them were seeing a Broadway show for the first time.

After the show we went to The Palm restaurant across the street for a free drink with your Lombardi ticket stub. We over took the bar area. The Palm is noted for their steaks and the cartoons of prominent people drawn on the walls. The Sharks owner, Andra Douglas told me that she has her picture on the walls of The Palm in Florida.

I saw that they had a small bites menu which was only $5.95 after 9pm. They had sliders, lobster sliders, mini-crab cakes and a few other things. Other people were ordering them and they looked really good and the price was right. But just before I was going to order some crab-cakes, I felt like someone knocked the floor from under me. I could feel the coming onset of a major cold and even though I only had one slice of pizza to eat for dinner, my appetite flew away quite quickly.

My eyes are usually bigger than my head and I really wanted to try the crab cakes but I knew that they wouldn't last inside my stomach on the long train ride back. So I refrained from ordering. Drat!

But in the long run it was the right choice. I made it home OK, but the next day got hit with the flu big time and was stuck in bed for 2 days.

Baskin Robbins 32 Flavors?

I am by no means an ice cream connoisseur or even an ice cream snob. I ususally don't eat ice cream and when I do, my tastes are pretty parochial and I stick with pistachio. And if pistachio is not available I usually will pass. That being said, I will still try something if it piques my interest.

Even though I work for a football team, I still am a big baseball fan at heart. So when I heard that Baskin and Robbins had a flavor named Baseball Nut®, I had to give it a try. It is a seasonal flavor that Baskin and Robbin rotates with other flavors that make up their lineup of 31 flavors. Baseball Nut® is a vanilla ice cream with a ribbon of black raspberry and cashew nuts. Even I know that Baskin and Robbins is not the best ice cream out there but I still went ahead and ordered a small scoop on a sugar cone. The ice cream wasn't that bad. Not creamy nor rich as the premium stuff but the flavors were not overpowering each other and there was no aftertaste. At least the ice cream didn't have any aftertaste.

I usually like sugar cones with my ice cream, as they provide a nice crunchy texture to go with the cool smooth ice cream. But this cone was unbelievably disgusting. It literally tasted like Play-Doh, that child's modeling clay toy. Now I have never eaten Play-Doh, but as a child I did know a few kids that did. But the taste of this cone was exactly like the smell of Play-Doh. It was so bad that I chucked the rest of the cone in the trash.

The aftertaste was so bad that I went over to a hot dog truck in front of Home Depot and ordered a chili dog to get the taste of Play-Doh out of my mouth. This was one ice cream flavor I could have done without.

Lost at Sea

When I travel through Rhode Island, I usually stop at Cosmic Steaks and Weiners in Warwick. Many times I stop there to have a classic New York style weiner with a friend of mine, but they are also open late. About a block away I drive by a Chinese restaurant that resides in a cement block building called China Sea. From the outside it looked a little tired and something from the 60's.

An old Chinese restaurant that seems to have been around for a long time always seems to pique my interest and I made a plan to stop here one of these days. On this trip I decided that I would rather have a full meal instead of a weiner for dinner so I figured that tonight would be a good time to try the place.

I had asked my friend Fred about this place before but even though he was a life long resident of the area, he never went there. He did say that it had been there as long as he could remember.

I should have taken that as a warning along with the fact that the parking lot was empty at 8pm. Still it was a Monday and many restaurants are not very busy on that day.

When I went inside it was like stepping back in time. The place was clean and tidy but the walls were wood paneled, giving it a very dark atmosphere. The bar was recently refurbished and after placing my order 2 guys probably in their late 20's came in and bellied up to the bar.

They seemed to be in a good mood and said hello to me. One of them then started to tell his friend how he and his mother would come in every Friday for beers. He then got quite excited about a news reporter that appeared on the tv above the bar. He said that he knew that reporter's brother. They had spent time in jail and his fellow inmate said that his sister was a reporter for the local news station.

The menu at China Sea was fairly typical of current Chinese restaurants. I had ordered a combination dinner of kung pao chicken with fried rice and an egg roll. I am usually interested to see what the egg roll was like. My mother used to make egg rolls for my grandfather's restaurant when I was growing up. She would roll up to 1,000 egg rolls in a day. I would spend most of that time playing with the restaurant's cat.

The first thing I noticed after biting into the egg roll was how green it was on the inside. It looked like something you would serve on St. Patrick's Day. The green was from all of the celery that was inside. Most egg rolls use cabbage as the filling but this one was predominately celery. The outside was a little crispy but the taste was only OK as it tasted mostly of celery.

As for the main course, the kung pao chicken was not very good. It consisted of dry chunks of white meat in a sweet, slightly spicy sauce. It was more sweet than spicy as there was no chili peppers in the dish.

This was one of those places that you should pay attention to the obvious signs and not go in. Sometimes you are pleasantly surprised but the percentages are against you. Still I probably haven't learned my lesson yet.