After eating a tiny blueberry muffin, I responded "mo cake" so that my grandmother, GaGa, would give me another one.
I was 3 and less verbose than I am now. Though I'm not sure I communicate any better. GaGa gave me another tiny blueberry muffin.
The place was 50 Yard Line steakhouse in Lubbock, Texas. It was and is one of my favorite restaurants in the whole world. Few places of any kind make me feel more nostalgic, and not just because it is decorated with pictures of former Texas Tech Red Raider legends. Imagine the Texas Sports Hall of Fame with a fabulous steakhouse inside of it, only it mainly features Texas Tech, which is good enough for me.
The Dallas Mavericks continue their march toward a world championship tonight when they face the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals.
At WacoFork, we're firmly in the corner of the little Mavericks. Or at least the member of the WacoFork team that is writing this blog is firmly in the corner of the little Mavericks. The member of the WacoFork team that is writing this blog can be seen around town — anywhere that offers food, drink and sports on television — living and dying with the Mavs throughout the rest of the playoffs.
The member of the WacoFork team that is writing this blog profoundly enjoys going out to watch a ball game. He is willing to put up with a high degree of over-fanning (this is people who loudly cheer made jump shots in the first half in order to show everyone that they are cheering for the team they are cheering for).
Last Friday, the WacoFork team along with some of our friends set out on a progressive dinner to explore the topic of chain restaurants. This is the video of the different reactions to the various courses of that meal. Enjoy.
Special thanks to our friend, Jon Davis (@jdavis83) for putting this together for us!
Texas isn't a better place because a California-based fast food chain came to our state.
But it isn't worse either, I suppose.
And I'll admit, I was intrigued enough to drive to Dallas today in order to eat at In-N-Out Burger. That's not the only reason I made the drive. I also met up with my friends Brian Patterson and Josh Hicks to watch the little Mavericks open the NBA Western Conference Finals against some team from Oklahoma, of all places.
I don't have a blog to go along with this picture. But do I really need one?
Tell me this likeness of dessert doesn't make you want to consume ice cream with chocolate sauce on it (and probably whipped cream) in some form. Right now.
For the sake of a little more context, this is a picture of Cheddar's Cookie Monster. It was taken during Friday night's In Defense Of Chains progressive dinner. Except for maybe Cameron Weed's insightful and slashing criticism of chain food restaurants, this dessert might have been the best thing encountered during the whole project.
Since I have written a blog about this, I might as well fish for some comments. What is your favorite dessert in town?
I'll be honest, I didn't know what to expect when I walked into Cafe Viejo San Juan at about noon today.
I don't think the owner, Joseph Parrilla, quite knew what to do with me when I said "Umm, could I get some tacos to go?"
He suggested that maybe I should try the taco truck next door, but I back-tracked a little bit because I really wanted to learn about Puerto Rican food. And Parrilla was gracious and happy to explain to me the differences between Mexican food and Puerto Rican food.
WacoFork editor Chad Conine and guest blogger Cameron Weed participated in a 3-course progressive dinner to commemorate Friday the 13th.
They agreed that chain restaurants are popular. And they agreed that the following Andy Warhol quote pretty much sums up why.
"What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
With that, here is their disagreement:
Happy graduation to all of those Waco residents who will walk across the stage at the Ferrell Center on Saturday.
If you're moving on from Waco, we'll miss you. Here's hoping you've experienced at least a few if not all of the following:
• Had a pint on Pint Night at The Dancing Bear.
• Dueled with a Cowboy Coffee at Common Grounds.
• Doubled up at Dubl-R.
Friday the 13th means weirdness and so we're going to participate in some weirdness.
Now, granted, Friday the 13th weirdness usually means more of the random, unpredictable weirdness. Nonetheless, we are setting up the potential for random unpredictable weirdness by going on a progressive jaunt across the Waco restaurant landscape.
The theme is chain restaurants. We will start at Chili's for appetizers at 6:30 tomorrow night, then proceed to Red Lobster for the main course at 8:30-ish and finish with dessert at Cheddar's at 10-ish. Join us for all three or pop-in for one or two. Let's make it a big, roving WacoFork party and, at the same time, spread a little love from and for Waco's newest and coolest hyper-local website. (I mean WacoFork, I'm being self-aggrandizing here).
But, wait, that's not all.
It's been a couple of weeks since we last updated our 4x200 Sweepstakes numbers and we definitely want to keep you in the loop.
Since the last update, we've continued to see steady growth — including blowing past 200 reviews — and as of Wednesday morning, we're up to 131 registered users, 181 Twitter followers, 150 "likes" on Facebook and 216 approved reviews of 95 different restaurants.
Remember we're giving away an iPad2 when we hit 200 in all four of those categories. One down, three to go. Here's the sweepstakes official rules.
Keep writing those reviews so that everyone can benefit from your dining expertise, but also so you'll have more chances to win the iPad2. If your friends haven't signed up as users, give them a little nudge so we can hit that 200 mark.
