‘Meat’
If you’ve been on or anywhere near the internet recently, you may have heard of a new level of awesome called Epic Meal Time. Although I take my unvegan eating dangerously serious, the makers of Epic Meal Time have turned eating meat into an orgy of spectacular caloric intake. I could go on talking about what they do, but I’d rather just let the videos speak for themselves. Below you can find a few of my favorites.
EDIT: This location is gone, but you can find the same over-peppered steak at The Capital Grille elsewhere.
Found in or around malls all around the country, The Capital Grille is a reliable, upscale steakhouse and I’ve never met anyone who isn’t a fan. So the combination of the girlfriend’s parents visiting and an awesome coupon led us to grab some dinner at the aforementioned grille. Despite having a reservation, we still ended up waiting a good 15 minutes for our table, then finally took our seats.
On a Saturday night the girlfriend and I were sitting around feeling lazy. Neither of us had eaten dinner, and we weren’t terribly hungry, but we knew that we needed some sort of food in our systems. It had to be light, and as I looked over my list of restaurants I wanted to try, only one seemed to tickle our fancies. This was a remotely new (8 months or so) restaurant called Tinga, in Mid-City.
The interior of Tinga has a nice wooden atmosphere that is almost like a bar except that it is BYO. In the middle of the small seating area is a long communal table and the walls are lined with stools. The ordering takes place at the counter and although the full menu is on the side wall, they also have paper menus for those who don’t want to stare awkwardly over the shoulders of fellow patrons.
One night a friend decided to meet me for dinner in North Hollywood. Typically I get myself out of that place as fast as I can after work, but on this night I was actually a bit excited to try out a place called Little Toni’s. Little Toni’s is a pizza place that isn’t open for lunch, so I figured this would be one of my rare opportunities to try them out. We walked inside and found the place wasn’t just some pizza joint, but an all-out Italian place that was probably pretty good for families. Nonetheless, we were ready to try their pizza.
In my continuing quest to find the greatest buffet in Las Vegas (and eventually the world!), I may have found one to stand toe to toe with Rio’s Carnival World Buffet. Situated in Planet Hollywood, the Spice Market Buffet doesn’t fit into the Hollywood theme, at least in name. It also doesn’t bear any resemblance to a Spice Market. Nonetheless, it does use spices and the walls are adorned with food-related movie posters like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (two very similar movies). The lunch buffet cost 25 bucks, but as soon as I looked around, I knew it was going to be well worth the price.
In Vegas for CES, I was lucky enough to be invited out for a little lunch at Benihana at the Hilton of Las Vegas. I had never heard of anyone going to Benihana for lunch (outside of The Office), but I wasn’t about to turn it down. If you don’t know Benihana, you’ve probably been living under a rock, but as a Japanese steakhouse, they cook in the teppanyaki style, which involves cooking on a huge griddle that also happens to be part of the table. For lunch they were cooking up steak, chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, onions and peppers, plus a salad for a set price of $24.99. This was actually a really good price for both Benihana and Vegas in general, so after ordering a Sapporo, I was ready to eat.
Those who question the culture of LA have never been to a place like Hy Mart. Although it sits in a strange strip mall in the middle of North Hollywood, the place has just the right culture for the city. Their specialty is sandwiches, but although some are more refined deli-style sandwiches, they also serve Middle-Eastern food. The decorum is pretty basic, with wooden chairs and simple tables, but the colorful walls, images of the Middle East and random pictures of signs in Thailand give the place a comfortable feeling like you’re in someone’s home. And in fact, you kind of are in someone’s home. Run by a husband, wife and son, there really is a certain comfort in the place. So even though the service isn’t fast, it’s not because you’re being forgotten, but for the same reason service isn’t fast when you go visit your family friend for dinner.
Although I am well aware of the crazy mix of people residing in North Hollywood, I was still amazed when I discovered the clientele at Jack’s Classic Hamburgers. A moderate walk from my office, I knew this would be a perfect place for me before I even saw the menu. This was because 1) they were mostly men and 2) they all seemed to be blue collar men. No yuppies in white shirts and skinny ties here. Instead of that, there were construction workers, cable men, an Iron Mountain driver and finally a dude who might have been related to Dog the Bounty Hunter. I was a little ashamed having come from my well-ventilated desk job, but I was ready to devour a burger just as manly as any of these guys.
Born in the great state of Michigan, the man called Alice Cooper already had my support. But on top of that, his music like “School’s Out” and “I’m Eighteen” really hit the spot during certain periods in my life. Now that I am basking in the meat-filled period of my life, Alice Cooper has done one more thing to earn my support.
Walking into Lemonade in Venice is at first quite frightening. This is because the place is set up sort of like a buffet/cafeteria and while that alone can be frightening to someone, the real frightening part is that the entire first section of the lineup is salads. And while these are more like your creative sweet potato or radish than lettuce and tomatoes, there is certainly a staggering amount of veggies. I quickly looked around to see if they had anything I could eat and found a nice menu that detailed some of the real food that Lemonade had to offer.