Things That Go in Your Mouth

[Niku]

I don't know how anyone made it out of that place alive.

Haley Joel Osment has some bad news for you.

[Disposable Ninja]

Little Caesar's makes a pretzel-bread pizza

don't get that

do not even entertain the thought

[Cthulhu-chan]

I find it's best to simply not go to little ceasars. They are not good.

[Thad]

But they're edible. $5 for a pie is a good price, and it's better than frozen pizza.

I don't understand how people can charge more than $5 for frozen pizzas and actually sell them.

[Brantly B.]

There are frozen pizzas that cost $5 or less and are several leagues away from Little Ceasars. Open Nature and Newman's Own are fine examples.

Little Ceasars is for when you absolutely, positively need a goddam pizza right the fuck now for some reason. It usually means you've fucked something up, and the taste will let you know that, but I am glad that it exists for those times when I've fucked something up.

[Thad]

Can't say as I've seen a Newman's Own for under $5 around here unless it's on sale. And you're still looking at at least a half-hour prep time for a frozen pizza. (And in our case, in a climate where you may not want to be running the oven during large segments of the year.)

[Büge]

I made date squares at Thanksgiving. Apparently they're also known as "matrimonial cake", which is something I don't understand.

[Blossom]

Fucking Domino's is $6 for a 2-topping Medium.

[Grath]

Domino's is my go-to cheap shitty pizza for when I'm having a bad day, because I can order my pizza without having to talk to a human. Except for this one time when their online ordering was broken, so I ordered from Papa John's website instead.

If I have the giving-a-fuck to leave my apartment to get pizza, I trend towards the local chain pizza shop across the street from my apartment. At least one of the cashiers knows my usual order, and the weekend before last the pizza cook made my pizza and tossed it in the oven before making the pizza for the guy who was ahead of me in line.

If I want really good food and I'm not working from the office on a given day, I'm lucky enough to live ~15 minutes from the Culinary Institute of America and they have a bakery cafe thing that opens for lunch at 11. The line's out the door and stuff starts selling out by 11:30 to 11:45, but it's seriously the best food I've ever had.

[nosimpleway]

The food trough at the Art Institute contracted out to Aramark, despite being on the same floor of the school as the culinary class kitchens. Way to remind me I went to the worst possible school. ( .__.)

[Thad]

We could probably have a "Which is the best chain pizza place" ranking thread.

I consider Domino's to be pure bottom of the barrel, but I haven't actually eaten there since the whole "We Swear, Our Pizza No Longer Sucks" campaign a few years ago.

I'd rank Little Caesar's above Pizza Hut but below Papa John's. But I haven't given Papa John my money since that anti-Obama stink in 2012; fuck that guy.

Regional chains tend to be better than national ones. I got Jimmy and Joe's tonight and it was pretty good.

[Blossom]

We could probably have a "Which is the best chain pizza place" ranking thread.

I consider Domino's to be pure bottom of the barrel, but I haven't actually eaten there since the whole "We Swear, Our Pizza No Longer Sucks" campaign a few years ago.

This would probably be why, yes. Easily the top national chain now.

[François]

Man, the cheapest pizza place around here serves a 12 inch plain pizza (sauce + cheese) for 9 bucks. Except that it's technically always a two for the price of one, where the price of one is 18 dollars, so you're not leaving the shop with a pie for under 20 bucks with tax. The best deal for pizza in town (besides making it yourself) is getting a frozen one at the supermarket when it's on sale, which'll end up costing between 6 and 8.

Didn't realize until now how completely insane that is in comparison to what you guys seem to be paying.

Of course I'm so poor that it's not like I pay those prices anyway. Besides, last week I improvized three slightly-smaller-than-medium seafood pizzas (with shrimp, mussels, squid and octopus) and it cost me like 12 bucks total, so the gouging mainly gets my goat when I'm lazy.

[Thad]

This would probably be why, yes. Easily the top national chain now.

Still probably not going to eat there anytime soon. Their ownership is worse than Papa John's's.

[Disposable Ninja]

Papa Johns pizza always tasted bland, mushy and soggy to me. Been a while since I had them, though. Usually, if I'm doing big chain, I do Domino's or Little Caesar's.

There's actually something oddly comforting about Little Caesar's rubbery cheese.

[Mongrel]

Poor little rich boy time.

So lobster and crab and such were a thing I was able to have not regularly, but now and then when I was a kid. And while I'll treat myself to a nice steak maybe 2-3 times a year it had been years and years since I'd eaten any lobster or crab (unless you count things like "This sushi has some lobster in it somewhere, but we have to tell you that because you'll never taste it"). I love seafood and crustaceans a ton, and anytime I've been to the east coast (twice, not in decades) it was amazing, but it was just something I figured I'd save money on.

Well, there's been a lobster glut the past two years; the stuff is getting pretty cheap. Not like, peanut-butter-and-soda-crackers cheap, but a fair bit cheaper than it used to be. Then the grocery store had a sale and I said, what the hell, and got a few moderate-sized (5oz) tails for $4.50 each.

Now the thing about making lobster is, it's really easy to fuck up. It's hard to make lobster that's totally inedible, but it's very easy to make lobster that makes you wonder "Why did I pay all that money for this?!" but at $4.50 a tail, I was totally cool with fucking up and only getting something so-so. I didn't WANT that, but if it happened, hey no big deal.

I also had some pork chops I got recently for cheap (but good pork chops are always reasonably cheap here - $1/chop), so for fun I decided surf and turf. I grilled the chop first and carefully broiled the tail after. Eating the chop, it turned out better than any pork chop I'd made in a long time, so tonight was already a win. Now I REALLY didn't care if I fucked up on the lobster, because hey, damn this is a good chop. Then the lobster turned out HEAVENLY haha, I mean coital levels of good here. Just like I remembered from so many years ago. Melted butter for the lobster and had some pasta on the side and that was it.

So all told dinner tonight cost this hobo maybe $7 for absolutely everything (not counting pinches of spices and $2.50 worth of booze), but I got to sit around and eat like a plutocrat. Good times.

[Grath]

I just set up a reservation to have dinner at The American Bounty, which is one of the full-blown restaurants at the Culinary Institute of America, as a pre-Christmas family get-together. (My sister's coming back to the US for a conference, and sticking around through Christmas - and we've got enough advance warning to get a reservation.) I'm probably going to listen to my roommate's suggestion of getting the rib-eye steak.

[Disposable Ninja]

I love eating food that should not be. Sometimes it works out, like when I got a bar of Wild Ophelia's Beef Jerky Chocolate. (It was actually really good!)

Today I bought a bag of smoked salmon jerky

that did not work out

[Brantly B.]

Salmon jerky is one of the worst things I've ever put in my mouth.

[Joxam]

but that doesn't even fucking SOUND good.