I love food.

So. Much.

And so I have decided to start a new series of articles based on my love of food. This is the first article which includes a review of a restaurant I recently dined at: J.Alexander’s. I hope my review of these heavenly places to “grab” some grub will help you become a lover of food as I am. Yes, I said lover.

J.Alexander’s. The location I went to was on the east coast of Florida in Boca Raton. The occasion was a nice night out with my wife and soon-to-be baby-mamma. We wanted something nice. Something memorable. There were the common places to choose from: Chang’s, Applebees, Pizza Hut Bistro. There were the uncommon places: all of which required valet parking. I am sure you remember THAT post. We wanted something with a history, something that was proven, so that ruled out all the mom and pop places. We wanted something different, so that ruled out the common franchises.

 We settled on J.Alexander’s at the suggestion of a friend and are very glad we decided to try them out.

THE ORDER

My wife ordered a strip steak, which came with a side of fries but she subbed it out for a side of fresh green beans. The steak was incredible. I know because she didn’t have to use A1 sauce on it. You can tell it was fired-seared because it was perfectly juicy. There was a butter garlic sauce that you could garnish on your steak as you ate it. Big plus there. The green beans for probably the best green beans I have ever tastred - they had some kind of garlic seasoning to start, but the real winning aspect of them was that they were so crunchy and full of substance.

I ordered a Roasted Chicken which was lightly crusted on the outside to give it that perfect crisp edge to the skin. I have to say that this review may be a tad bit skewed since I am currently thinking about adding Roasted Chicken to my list of all-time favorite foods. But I can honestly say that J.Alexander’s perfect crisp roasted chicken is now in my top TWO favorited roasted chickens served at a resturaunt. The other is Rum Runners. If I went back, I wouldn’t be able to NOT order it. It was that good. It came with “Smashed Potatoes” but I substituted that for a “loaded” baked potatoe. This sucker was loaded in the fullest sense. It was about 5 inches TALL (not wide) and was amply supplied with cheese, sour cream, butter, bacon, chives, and I’m sure love from the chef him- or herself. The skin was encrusted with sea salt. The entire baked potatoe ceased to exist about 10 minutes later.

My wife and I went for dessert afterward and we are glad we did. The waitress recommended the carrot cake since supposedly J.Alexander’s is famous for it’s carrot cake. Regrettably and at the same time unregrettably, we ordered, and I quote directly from the menu, the “Very Best Chocolate Cake”. Pretty dang good. Came with an honestly generous helping of vanilla icecream, drizzled with chocolate sauce and a couple mint leaves. The cake was enough for both of us, easily. Not too rich, and not just all icing and fluff. Again, I am not sure I would be able to order anything else should I go again, although that carrot cake sure is tempting as I write this.

THE SERVICE

Not a whole lot of bad things to say about the service. Our waiter made some good comments about certain menu items, was never “missing”, and the drink refills were virtually nostop, a HUGE plus in my book. Other than that, it was standard restaraunt service as it should be. He got a well-deserved tip.

THE ATMOSPHERE

Family style dinner? Sure. A romantic dinner date? Definitely. Jumpin’ night life? Not really. Although there is a bar in the middle of the dining area, I would say this place was way too quiet if you were looking for a “watch the game and drink on a stool” evening. The table we sat at was big enough for 6 people. And it was just the 2 of us. The crowd started to pour in around 5:00 PM. We got there at 4:30. The tables are spaced enough apart that you don’t feel like you might just be part of any number of tables. Good music, subtle but you were aware it was playing.

PRICE POINT

Ahh the big question. I think we got out of there with under a 50-dollar total bill (after tax and tip). For what you are getting, the price is just about right. Add some alchoholic drinks and you could easily tack on another 15-20 bucks. I wouldn’t eat here every night (or even every month at this point), but once in a while is great. I have had way worse meals for more than this costs so that’s saying something.

So if you are ever near one of their considerably few locations throughout the country, I recommend trying these guys out. Tell ‘em Aazh sent ya.

Website: J.Alexander’s

Let me begin by painting an insightful, revealing picture of just how much I love coffee: not that much. On the love spectrum, I would put me and coffee in a place that doesn’t really belong on a love spectrum. I’m just not one for coffee. I don’t require coffee to wake me up in the morning. A cup of coffee after dinner just isn’t my cup of tea. Were midday “tea” breaks as common here in the US as in other areas of the world, I likely wouldn’t participate.

That’s not to say that I will not drink coffee. And when I do, I rather enjoy it. I usually prefer a nice, cool drink to a hot cup of coffee, but I’m one to mix it up on occasion. And I don’t imagine such a preference is limited to me. Someone actually took note of casual coffee enjoyers like myself and came up with a bright idea a long time ago– iced coffee.

Not that coffee, even iced coffee, is a new idea, but it seems more and more restaurants are finally realizing the appeal of coffee that’s already cold, made colder with ice.

McDonald’s, which has been selling iced coffee in our area for quite a while now, has a billboard advertisement on a road I frequently drive by that shows off their new sugar-free iced coffee as well as their regular sugar-full iced coffee. But I was a bit confused by the tagline they had. The ad says: Twice the Ice

Twice the Ice? Twice as what? Regular coffee? Nothing twice is still nothing… Twice as they used to do with iced coffee? Because they already fill that cup up with ice. I’m trying to find the application but I just can’t. Did they say twice because they have two drinks on there? But why would one get two drinks, two differently presented drinks at that (one w/sugar, one without)?

Whatever, all this talk about iced coffee makes me want one now. But those hazelnut-flavored cups of cool, liquid genius are expensive. Maybe they meant Twice the Price.

A ceremonial musical instrument. Not much is known about its origin or history except that it is sounded to herald the commencement of the consumption a large meal or an unhealthy candy alternative to a meal.

Video archive:

Today I got a late start getting out of the house. I stopped to pick up a quick breakfast at McDonald’s, as I occasionally do. Today felt like an Egg McMuffin day…I usually just get a yogurt and an iced coffee, but I was feeling a bit more hungry for some odd reason.

Unbeknown* to myself at this moment was the fact that it was later than I suspected. I’d soon figure this out and come to an understanding as to why I was as hungry as I was. My usual small breakfast hunger was joining with a newly-spawning lunch hunger.

Anyway, enough omnipotence, back to the story: me, unsuspecting and temporarily obliviously ordering a “number 1″ (this is the Egg McMuffin meal on the breakfast menu). Pull forward, pay, next window. Iced coffee, bag of food. I open the bag…SURPRISE, it’s fries!

“Fries? They serve fries with breakfast?” I think to myself, as the imaginary audience that watches my every move Truman Show-style rolls their collective eyes and shakes their heads.

And then I get it. The time, the fries, McDonald’s unforgivingly strict and too early breakfast/lunch transition. “What’s a number 1 on the lunch menu? I never get a number 1 for lunch.”

Revelation number 2 hits me within 30 seconds of the first one, before I could even finish my first blessedly hot fry: I have never eaten a McDonald’s Big Mac. I felt like a robot learning new emotions. Special sauce? What’s this middle bread? Interesting…

I probably won’t get one again…it wasn’t that great. Plus I lucked out on the tomato front thanks to the salmonella scare (I think tomatoes are poison + tomatoes actually are poison at the moment = no tomatoes = I’m totally cool with that). Besides, I never grew out of Chicken McNuggets.

*You may’ve thought…”isn’t that ‘unbeknownst’?” It could be, either way is correct…and I figure: who needs that extra ST?

Whether you know it or not, you know a sampler.

We’ve all been to a few restaurants and we’ve all been to them with a few friends. It turns out, that the more friends you go with to a single sitting at a restaurant, the more likely you will encounter the sampler.

You step off a cruise ship and into a cab. You pay the full agreed fare, and also a tip.

You rent a hotel room, paying full price according to the hotel chains pricing scheme. You leave a tip.

You eat a meal at a restaurant and at the end of your meal you pay a tip.

You take one stupid photo in front of some weird-looking guy’s donkey! Tip time.

Tips are business. I don’t know the stats as to how much money is made on tips in any given period of time (I’m sure it wouldn’t be to difficult to find out) but I would venture to guess it’s one of those money making methods that stray into the billions of dollars per year side of the tracks. Oh and don’t get me wrong. I can see why they are needed. Restaurant owners are essentially robbing us as we are required to pay their waiters’ and waitresses’ salaries. Housekeeping personnel are also paid pretty much jack and so in addition to paying the hotel for a good night’s sleep (hopefully), we are also employing their cleanup crew.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it were not for the fact that:

1. Not everyone KNOWS how to tip, myself included at times. Here is some help in that field.
2. Tips are so commonplace in some situations that they completely lose their meaning. You tip because you are expected to tip, even if it is for a vague reason.

I daresay that there are probably conservatively thousands of persons in the world whose sole income is from “tips” that are placed outside the “normal” tipping range – taking a photo of a donkey, for instance – and don’t pay a dime in taxes on it.

And this is why tipping loses its meaning.

Case in point

Me: What a delicious meal we have just enjoyed wife of mine!
Her: Yes! Delicious!
All of us: We love this food, yeah! Hurrah!
Me: Oh here comes the bill. Hmmm… everything looks right. I’ll just take out my Discover Card here and – erhh what – ?

“An 18% gratuity has been added to your bill for parties of 8 or more.”

Me: What the crap!?

Now hold on, I know what you are thinking. Aazh is just CHEAP. Well, my good friend, you are right. But the explanation regarding that must be for another time or post. But not when it comes to tipping. I hold a pretty strong 20% when visiting the occasional cafe or bistro. So 18% is saving me money. My question is: Since when did I have no choice of whether I tip or not?

If a tip is supposed to be a reward for good service, did I miss the bulletin that proclaimed that all servers serving tables with 8 or more guests are incredible and deserve an AUTOMATIC 18% of my total bill? In that case, why don’t tables of 8 or more just get the more expensive version of the dinner menu as well and see it for what it is? It is a lack of choice. Oh! You can leave more if you wish… but can you imagine the hassle you would have to go through to remove or reduce an automatic tip if the service you received was abysmal?

Last night some friends and I went to Blu Sushi, which you probably wouldn’t know much about unless you lived in Southwest Florida…but I’m sure you at least get the idea that they make sushi. That particular night was “Blu Sushi’s Tribute to the Little Black Dress” —ladies wearing a black dress got a free gift and champagne. There was no requirement for guys, but I dressed up anyways (I think I was the only guy there wearing a tie).

They gave our party of 16 the VIP room, which was basically our own room in the back with a large TV that showed various underwater scenes (fitting for a sushi place, I suppose).

Good sushi, good drinks, good times.

Now I’m off to the other coast for the beginning of a long weekend in Boca Raton. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to blog about come Monday.

Hello cyberworld space!!! I am a blog media monkey! First blog post ever.

Here’s a little proof that being dishonest can save you cash - meanwhile giving people like me a reason to expose the punk that did the following thing:

So this morning went pretty well. I was running ahead of schedule by about 10 minutes which ain’t bad for a Friday. I avoided the increasingly annoying parking disaster that usually meets me on Friday at exactly 8:45 AM by arriving at my stop at 8:35 AM. More on that another time. As it was, running 10 minutes ahead, coupled with a fairly parched mouth meant that an oh-so-satisfying reward awaited me at the McDonald’s on home stretch. And by reward, I mean an 8″ tall styrofoam cup full of nature’s scalp-massaging rocket fuel, unsweetened iced tea. It’s only a buck ‘o six at most participating McDonald’s. And interestingly enough, that price is exactly what this post is all about.

I step off my truck and into the medium-sized queue, anxious to order my tea when I notice a woman standing off to the side with an armfull of breakfast foods and a cup holder with a few miscellaneous sodas. I figure she must have forgotten to order something since she had some change out and was looking in the general direction of the cashier, though she wasn’t precisely standing in either of the lines. I decided to let her jump in front of me, since I felt bad that she would have to go through that line again just for something she forgot to order.

She gets up to the cashier and in low tones mutters, “sweet iced tea please”.

She pays with a paper Washington, a copper Lincoln, and a metal Jefferson - buck ‘o six.

The cashier hands her an empty styrofoam cup and I order my tea next and also get an empty cup. I follow the lady over to the tea dispenser and find my eyes narrowing with suspicion as she places her cup under, not a tea dispenser, BUT a SODA DISPENSER! After filling her illegally purchased, tar-tainted cup with Powerade, she grabs a lid and heads out.

OK. Here are the facts. The iced tea cup is as big as a large drink at McDonalds. A large drink there typically costs, depending on region and franchise, about $1.69-$2.00. Iced tea is, say it with me, buck ‘o six. The candor and efficiency of the transaction made it clear, in hindsight, that she must do this regularly. Buy food to go, get back in line, buy “iced tea”. A supporting fact is that when you get your drinks to go at this McDonalds, they fill teh cups for you and so if she were to order a “sweet iced tea”, then that would be what her thieving self would get!

Closing thoughts; I guess this shouldn’t surprise me. I, for one, wouldn’t do it. There is a reason for the prices as they are set. It is obvious that an iced tea is cheap as anything since it is mostly water, which is why it only costs …. you know. My question is this: Is it worth it? Is the additional wait in line during the breakfast rush worth saving 69 - 86 cents? Has anyone else ever seen anything like this? I await your comments.

In the hyper-competitive world of speed eating, it doesn’t get much better than this.

“Quick Lips” Lathan

After an almost subliminal suggestion from Josh, The FourTwo decided to enter into the little-known world of beer tasting. Don’t make the mistake of confusing beer tasting with something dainty and proper-like wine tasting— similar name, different kind of party.

We invited 16 of our close friends with strict instructions to bring at least one unique beer for everyone to try. The fridge was packed, Josh and contributor ShiftDelete acted as bartenders and by the end of the night we tried 20 different beers.

The beers ranged from a Raspberry Lindeman Framboise Lambic, to a smoked sausage-tasting Marzen, Young’s Oatmeal Stout, Belgium Chimay Ale, Hennepin, Three Philosophers, Fuel Cafe, Gulden Draak, Double Chocolate Stout, Honey Amber Rose, and one called Holy Mackerel.

The tasting party was a hit and I would highly recommend it to readers of The FourTwo!

Here are some suggestions for your own beer tasting party:

• Use glasses - Plastic cups just aren’t the same
• Drink from lightest beer to darkest - The darker beers tend to have a heavier taste
• Have food on hand - It helps clean your palette and offset the alcohol
• Drink some water - Beer dehydrates you
• Have guests rate the beer in some way - It makes it easier to remember what they liked

I compiled some recommendations for complimentary food to serve at your party:

• Chips
• Cheese and Crackers
• Chocolate pieces
• Fruit (apricots, grapes, plums, oranges, lime, raspberries)
• Cold meats
• Smoked Sausage
• Pates
• Hummus

Most importantly - HAVE FUN. This is a social event! Take your time, introduce and talk about the beers, and when you leave, you’ll have closer friends and a better idea of the type of beers you like.

More photos available here >