Work(ing Title)

In my mail this week I recieved a note from Yelp about some of the more interesting eateries in Seattle. I’ve found this service to be a good way to culture myself, so that I might properly entertain each of you who ascends into this foul weather to visit me. This sort of review I believe will only encourage you all to come and see the gems that Seattle has to offer (though perhaps not for another month or three–it’s still cold).

From the Yelp lsiting for Cafe Mecca, Tyler H. says:

“You know you’ve arrived in the world of slash-and-burn alcoholism when you find yourself sitting in the back booth of the Mecca drinking mimosas and eating hash browns at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning without ever having quite made it home from the bars the night before.

As someone who managed to pull off this feat a couple times back in the day: I both highly recommend the experience. And also recommend you avoid it at all costs.

That said, as others have mentioned, this place is one of Seattle’s few definitive greasy spoon diners. Sometimes the bar section gets obnoxiously packed, but even on the weekends you can usually saddle up the the bar of the diner side with a friend and throw back a few cheap beers.”

Wow! Don’t you just want to fly up here this weekend if for no other reason than to experience, “slash-and-burn alcoholism?!”

Thank you for the finest of the straight-talking chefs. Anthony Bourdain gives his opinions of the Food Network’s stars, but the finest and most humorous bit is all about Rachel Ray:

“Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So…what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that ‘Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!’ Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, ‘Hell…I could do that. I ain’t gonna…but I could–if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?’ Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better–teach us–and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. ‘You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion–you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit…Sleep….sleep….’ “

Fucking brilliant and utterly hysterical. [via Eric]