Current Weight: 169.8 lbs.
Y'all remember Fabolous, right? Even if you abhor rap music, you probably heard this song blowing up the radio (y'all remember radio, right…?) in 2001. With CDs all but extinct, the Brooklyn-born MC is still moving units (his most recent commercial release – 2009's Loso's Way - debuted at #1 on the Billboard Charts).
I've done my part to keep his act alive by repeatedly quoting a piece of his verse from the "Trade it All" cut off his Ghetto Fabulous release:
I started out a playa…
Now, I'm 'bout to have my jersey retired…
OK, OK…I need a new catchphrase. But, you get the point. Wait…you don't? Fine. Here's m'man Nick'a to explain how us "semi-retirees" relate to today's bar scene:
I'm like Michael Jordan with the Wizards. I can still put up 40 a night, but I might need to ice my knees for a little bit longer, afterwards.
You kids STILL can't relate? Here…let me speak in a language any age can understand. In ascending order, this is my list of the top five fast food items that best aid recovery during/after a night of drinking. (For the sake of simplicity, I'm only focusing on well-known commercial chains.)
(5) – In-N-Out's Double-Double with Extra Sauce: I'm on record referring to In-N-Out as overrated. However, for the purposes of absorbing beer from the blood stream, this greasy-on-the-outside, thousand-island-dressing-on-the-inside gut buster is a much appreciated terrorist attack on the small intestine.
(4) – Dunkin' Donuts Frosted Maple Bars: I became a believer during my trip to Cooperstown last summer, which included an ungodly night of drinking in Albany. I wolfed down four of these (TBG reader "NY Jon", who was with me that evening, swears I ordered and ate a full half-dozen) in the sixty seconds it took for us to flag down a cab at almost 4:00 AM. I should've been clinically dead the next morning. These kept me alive.
(3) – Taco Bell's Cheesy Potato Burrito: This remains the most underpublicized and underrated item on TB's menu. The starchiness from the potatoes and tortilla is like a BAC sponge while the sour cream and nacho cheese sauce coats the stomach, settling things down like those old commercials showed us back in the day.
(2) – Jack in the Box's Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger: When I first started at San Diego State University, JitB's Jumbo Jack was selling for 99 cents. I had next to no money, but I could always scrape up $2.08 for two Jumbo Jacks after a State party. 100 years later, I needed to up the recovery ante. Two quarter-pound patties, topped with three slices of cheese and four strips of bacon? That'll work.
(1) – McDonald's McGriddle: McDonald's needs to start selling these at "last call" hours instead of just "breakfast" hours. It's everything the problem drinker needs: starch from the pancake-y bun, grease from the sausage, no-mess portability and a pleasant syrupy scent left on the palate that masks the previous evening's misdeeds better than mouthwash.
Jack in the Box's new Grilled Breakfast Sandwich follows the successful formula of their other "grilled" line of sandwiches. From JitB's website:
Two fried eggs, two slices of ham, two strips of bacon and two slices of melting American cheese, all on top of grilled artisan bread.
FRIED eggs? For more than three decades, I've been conditioned to expect fast food eggs to be either frozen faux poached (ex. Egg McMuffins) or frozen ersatz scrambled (ex. Every other fast food menu item that includes eggs). We were off to an outstanding start, though, as the cheap paper used to wrap the sandwich had become a shiny, grease-sopped mess.
Obviously, no one believes JitB is cracking eggs and fry-cook flipping them in a skillet, but the final product – however it's derived – is a reasonable facsimile of a fried egg. The quadruple hit of cured meats helps prop up the egg's flavor while the melted cheese and crispy artisan bread accomplish the "comfort food" affect that Carl's Jr. so famously failed at earlier this year.
So, where does Jack in the Box's Grilled Breakfast Sandwich rank on the drunk food scale? Well, I don't know, since I haven't been out drinking in a non-happy hour environment* in a hot minute. But, the next night I go out, I'll let y'all know. (Pending Mrs. Bootleg's permission.)
* -- Yes, there's a difference.
Grade: 4.5 (out of 5) Calories: 599(!) Fat: 28g
Since I was (and for the sake of me maybe needing security clearence one day we're going to raise this a few years) 18 my hangover cure has remained unchanged: two plain tortillas and enough water to drown a small village. I can't remember where I read this but it said that you should think of tortillas as the rafts on luxury cruise ships: they expand when they hit liquid. The tortilla sops up the excess alcohol turning it into a starchy mush.
ReplyDeleteBut the best, most effective hangover cure I've heard of? I used to work in a neuropsychiatrists clinic and he told me that when he was in med school he'd hook himself up to an IV.
Hangover cures? Tortillas? Sorry I'm late!
ReplyDeleteYeah SHough nailed it with the tortilla recommendation. That and some simple rice and beans is really all you need.
Menudo really does work, too. Although GOOD menudo is hard to come by in most places.
I've never felt more like a stereotype than right now.
That place down on University & College had/has(?) great menudo. Can't remember the name, but it was a few doors down from that scuzzier-than-most strip club.
ReplyDeleteOn weekends, after 2:00 AM, the restaurant turned into a Judd Apatow film.