Epic Portions

Tag: food

  • The Counter is Custom Burger Heaven

    After hearing about a new kind of up-scale burger-joint opening up in the neighborhood, we decided to start by doing our homework.  The online buzz was very good.  A premium, custom built-to-order burger restaurant, with real drinks and a hip, cool look.  The Counter guarantees their beef is 100% antibiotic and hormone free as well as being humanely raised and handled. They are a top pick by several reviewers and point out that their menu offers over 300,000 burger combinations.  The company was started in Santa Monica, CA in 2003 and they have quickly grown to several locations, coast to coast and worldwide. (more…)

  • Haiti Relief hot dog eating contest turns tragic

    Its not every day a young boy dies at a hot dog eating contest.  Especially a 13 year-old middle school student at a supervised Boys and Girls Club charity event.  Although the choking death appears to be an accident, the Police are investigating.

    Call me a conspiracy theorist – but a few things in this story don’t  add up.   First, is that the food these 12 young contest participants were eating makes no sense.  Apparently this wasn’t a contest to see how many hot dogs the kids could eat.  Rather, it was contest was a “game” to see who could finish a cooked hot dog and bun covered with whipped cream.  What the HELL?  Not Fear Factor, but not Great Eats either [Hats off to our EPIE winner!].

    Additionally, and weirder, the contest itself was part of a charity event to raise money for the Haiti quake disaster.  That’s weird isn’t it?  An eating contest as a part of an event to raise money for poor people to get. . .food. Lastly, the prize for the kids upon finishing the whip-cream-dog. . .is described as some “candy.”  As in – you kids finish your whip-cream-dog and we will give you some candy.

    That is just creepy. Although,I suppose back in the halcyon days of middle school I might have had a go.

    The only good news is that the event reported raising $150 for Haitian Relief.  Come to think of it. . .that buys a lot of hot dogs.

  • An Alternative to the Five Second Rule

    We all hate it when this happens. You’re making food or eating…and boom – something falls on the floor.

    The frustration. The pain. The shattered dreams. The awkward silence when you know someone saw it happen. The faux paus created by that split second – that infinitesimal moment of thought – where you consider eating it. And the person that saw you knows.  Oh, they know what you’re thinking.

    Friends, worry no more! No longer do we suffer through that pain and awkwardness. Thanks to recent research and the stylings of SFWeekly, we now have guidance.  I give you, the food-on-floor decision tree:

    Consult this handy chalkboard if you ever happen to drop your ham sandwich in front of your boss.

    On that note, a small rant:
    When I was in college, I found out that a girl got paid several grand to do summer research. Her question: Does the five second rule actually work? Her answer: “It depends what kind of food you drop, and what you drop it on”

    I’m pretty sure that a cancer researcher somewhere could have used that extra few thousand dollars, and I could have divined that answer if you’d bought me lunch or a cup of coffee.