Does anyone else not go to the same restaurant too often out of fear of being judged by the employees? I'm sure they actually remember 0 people, but the very thought of someone thinking I eat out at the same place more than twice a week or so is too humiliating for me to bear.
Alt-Focus: Swiss Chalet. I could possibly eat that every day (thought the grass is always greener). Americans, you don't know what you're missing.
Arby's I literally ate Arby's until I puked in my mouth. In my junior year of college, I befriended a guy so that he would drive me places with his car. (let me stop right here and say that I made it clear to this guy that we would never have sex. I faked a friendship so that I didn't have to take the bus.) Anyway, this guy loved to eat Arby's because it's cheap, so I ended up eating Arby's for dinner every night for a week. Then, on Saturday night, we ate a Arby's and on the drive home, I got sick off Arby's to the point that I threw up in my mouth in the back seat of a two-door car. I had to swallow it. So I haven't eaten Arby's since.
Haven't worn any restaurant out, but there's a few foods/dishes I'm done with. Growing up in a Catholic home, we abstained from meat on Fridays all year, not just during Lent. Out of 52 Fridays/year, we had tuna casserole (my mother's concocted version which consisted of elbow macaroni, canned tuna, a can of mushroom soup, and frozen peas--all store brand) 51 of them. As bad as her cooking was, no one ever said anything for fear of reprisal from my father for "hurting my mother's feelings." The problem was, since no one said anything, she thought everyone liked what she made. My first trip back home freshman year of college and what's for dinner? Tuna casserole. The other is boxed macaroni & cheese, the ramen of my college years. The generic at the local sack n' save was .19/box, and we ate tons of that shit in college. I get a gastro reaction just looking at the box. The only mac n' cheese my kids have ever had (at least in our house) is homemade. My oldest is in for a rude awakening when she goes away to college next year. I could eat Babe's fried chicken everyday for the rest of my life, which wouldn't be too long since I'd probably have a massive MI in a matter of months.
Damn and I thought I grew up in a strict Catholic home. The one thing I can never eat again is meatloaf. My mother is a shitty cook, at least way shittier than a mom should be. Most of our meals were cobbled together from leftovers and whatever was in the cabinets. One thing she made routinely was meatloaf; and even by meatloaf standards it was horrible. We ate it at least once a week, and by ate it I mean ate in the way concentration camp victims ate their scraps. It was terrible, but we didn't have a choice. Now whenever I even think about it I remember the smell of it and get nauseous.
I have been eating spinach at least 4 times a week for the last 4 years. Dinner seems incomplete if I don't have either a fresh spinach salad or sauteed spinach. I will never tire of spinach.
I was in a similar situation after my freshman year of college. I worked a soul-sucking job at a local Wal-Mart that summer, and I only got 30 minutes for lunch or dinner. The only feasible option for food was the in-house McDonalds due to other restaurants being a bit too far away to make it back safely. I ate McDonalds every day, 5-6 days a week, for three straight months. That was almost 15 years ago and to this day I will only eat McDonalds as a last resort (road trip, etc.). Although I have been meaning to try a McGangbang to see if it's as glorious as everyone claims.
I used to go to this shitty Chinese place near my old apartment in Birmingham very, very frequently. Like, every-other-day frequently. The only reason I didn't go every day was because each time I went I would order enough for two days worth of food. Yay leftovers! But seriously, I paid the overhead on their dirty kitchen for about a year. It was mortifying. I'd slink in, hoping the cashier (same woman at the register every day) wouldn't recognize me until I made it to the counter. But she'd catch a glimpse of my baseball hat or sweatpants and she'd immediately shout out my order in a shrilly voice to her (husband? brother? cousin?) cook in the kitchen. I'd press my lips together and give her a tight smile, acknowledging that my overwhelming laziness had yet again overpowered my sense of shame. There were other places to eat nearby, but I'd have to drive 4-5 minutes longer. Or- horror of horrors- I'd have to walk somewhere. Did I mention that I weighed about 50 lbs. more back then? I'm sure she thought it was pathetic that this heavy white girl would come in every other day and order a fuckton of food. Actually, I am almost positive she thought I was a gross human being (and, to be fair, I was). The judgment felt almost as bad as the calorie overload. After I moved away from Birmingham, I didn't eat Chinese food for a long, long time. And even now, the smell of lo mein is indelibly linked with a feeling of shame.
Yup. There is a Walgreens within walking distance of my house. Up until recently, I used to walk in there at some hour after dark and before they closed at 11 and get a big case of beer and gummy worms just about every weekend. There is this huge, babyfaced black man who works there and I always prayed that he wasn't at the register. I would also always skirt around the aisles in hopes that he wouldn't see me. I dunno, it was just something about the way he'd tell me to stay safe after ringing up my items that made me feel so shameful.
I wouldn't be killer worried about what they think of you. They're the sad fucks who work in the shit places you're eating. The good places, though? Fuck, last time I checked they actually want your business and they probably appreciate you dropping by.
There was a restaurant near campus that I liked that put "50% off any entree" coupons on the back of the receipts at the local supermarket my Freshman year. I hoarded enough of them to last me all four years and was in there regularly. I took whatever I saved from the coupon and used it as a tip, so I'm guessing the owner hated me and the staff loved me.
I don't understand this. If you're a regular why wouldn't you want the employees to recognize you? There are a couple of places I go to every week and being recognized by the staff is certainly a benefit. One of the places is a chinese buffet that has these delicious green beans I eat every time I'm there - they're not served every day and I only go there on days they serve them - the staff eventually picked up on this. On one occasion when I game in to eat for whatever reason they weren't serving the beans on that day like they normally did. However when I arrived they offered to cook up a batch just for me, which I graciously appreciated. focus & anti-focus: Neither really applies to me. I've never eaten a food so much that I can't stomach the thought of ever eating it again, and conversely I don't think I could retain my sanity if I was only allowed to eat at one restaurant.
When I was cooking I took it as a compliment when someone kept coming back. It says "Hey your food is good!"* without the customer having to open their mouth. A bbq place opened up near campus here last year and I've received exceptional service after coming in frequently, i.e. huge servings, fresh fries, and fast service. Like Volo said, they appreciate the patronage and probably won't judge you as much. * Spoiler Could be a hot server or they're selling good drugs out of the back too. Go figure.
There is a pizza place nearby me that has a coupon deal through their website: whenever you sign up to recieve specials via email, the first email has a coupon for $5 off of any one pizza or $10 off of two. I have my domain setup through gmail, so I just sign up again whenever I order pizza. I'm wondering when they are going to notice that there is about 15 different accounts along the lines of pizzaplace1@sartirious.com and pizzaplace2@sartirious.com on the list.
I ate pretty much the same lunch my senior year of HS- Cheese Fries and either a VeryFine fruit punch or a Snapple.It was all I could stomach. 17 years later, there HAS to be some orange cheese residue in my lower intestine. Anti Focus: My family and I go to NC at least three times a year. Right near the grocery store we frequent is a Char-Grill. Char-Grill makes the best Carolina style burgers (mustard, chili and slaw) I've ever tasted. If I lived down there and had the money, I think I could eat 2 burgers every day for lunch and dinner for at least a year without a problem. Other than obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.
(Warning: contains nonsensical bitching and moaning about 9/11... if you're sensitive to this subject, please skip this if you're easily offended) FOCUS: I can not eat McDonalds anymore. At all. And its the fucking Taliban's fault, or Al Queda... or possibly George Bush... I don't know, whoever was responsible for 9/11, just pick a conspiracy theory and go with it I guess... its not really important for the story. I used to eat at Mcdonalds a LOT when I was in middle-school and high-school. Not for any real reason, it was just the cheapest place around and one of the first places around here to have a dollar-menu, way back in like 1999/2000, so there was that appeal I guess. It was just OK food that gave me just enough energy to slug through the school-day, when I didn't feel like having cardboard chicken nuggets and soggy french fries from the cafeteria. Oh yeah, I was active enough to not become a huge fat-ass from eating it every single day, so fuck Morgan Spurlock. Just to set the time-line, I started high school exactly 2 weeks before 9/11... (holy shit, its really been a decade since I was in high-school... fuck me.) so I didn't get to enjoy ANY of my high-school days because of that shit. Not so much because it affected me personally, but, it just changed everything from the happy-go-lucky 90's that I so fondly remember and look back on. Anyways... McDonalds was one of the only restaurants that didn't have TV's in the eating area like Jack in the Box and the local teryaki joints did. After the first week or so of watching the footage in school, EVERY period, EVERY day, for like a month, it really started to grind on me... I just wanted to be a normal high-school kid and have fun and do my work and get the hell out... I didn't want to have a political war between all my class-mates, but thats eventually what it devolved into. So McDonalds was my escape. 9/11 didn't happen at McDonalds, it happened in some distant universe that was far-far-away... at least while I was in the restaurant. For about 2 months straight, until everyone and their dog stopped talking about 9/11 for 24 hours a day straight, every single day, I just used that little ghetto McDonalds as my little 1/4 acre of heaven-on-earth where I didn't need to be bombarded by all that depressing shit I couldn't do anything about, but everyone was getting all hysterical (as in bad hysteria, not funny-haha-hysterical) about it and I just couldn't take it. After associating that kind of depression with McDonalds food, and using the food to absorb that much depression and using the restaurant as a safe little womb from all the panicky people outside, it just put a bad taste in my mouth every time I even think of McDonalds food. It gives me the exact some reaction as thinking about eating my mothers placenta. Its not that I didn't care about 9/11 or that, its just that I couldn't do anything about it, I had no real opinion on it other than "that fucking sucks" and I just wanted to be a stupid horny teenager who maybe pulled a little trim down in high-school, and maybe scraped by with passing grades. Alt-Focus: I could eat Pho, the Vietnamese soup, EVERY SINGLE DAY for the rest of my life and I wouldn't complain about it ever. It sounds like something aliens would eat, but its really fucking popular here and I was surprised that I liked it so much. My brother thinks its just over-priced and dirty Cup-of-Noodles, and when I tried to get my mom to eat it she actually puked right in the restaurant, but I don't care... this shit is amazing stuff and I feel great after I eat it. I mean, it should be a part of modern medicine... fuck Chicken Noodle Soup when you're sick... just go order a #3 from any local Pho shop and you'll be cured of you're ailments within hours. I swear this stuff tastes so good I bet it could cure cancer. Ok... maybe I'm hyping it up a little too much for some noodles and beef, but I've never had anything so delectable and easy to eat. My only complaint is that it takes a while to make (at least if you're making it good, and that its hard to find a restaurant (at least here) that will let you order to-go, because I guess finding cheap packaging that holds up to liquid that is slightly less hot than molten lava and doesn't leak said hot liquid all over the eaters crotch is hard to find. Also... Spicy Chicken Teriyaki is amazing depending on what "school" of teriyaki the restaurant is... I've found that there are 3 or 4 different styles of teriyaki, and that Bento sucks ass, and whatever the place up the street from is called (its in Japanese symbols, so I can't read it or pronounce it) is just amazing. Even though it makes me sweat profusely and sometimes it makes it so I can't taste anything for a couple hours afterwards and one time it felt like it almost gave me heat-stroke, I swear I could live on this stuff for the rest of my life... just so long as they keep the rice coming!