One of my most treasured meals in the fair city of Berkeley came from a taco truck that would claim a spot at the south entrance to campus, where a constant flow of foot traffic funnels staff, students and passersby through Sather Gate to the bounty of academia beyond. Whenever I found myself between classes and work shifts, stranded on the south side with a hunger borne more of vacancy than appetite, I would exchange three dollars for two corn husk-wrapped bundles of pork, salsa verde and steamed masa that could send me to class with the well-rounded satisfaction that only an honest tamal can provide.

During those paper tray meals on the steps of the student union, I concluded that honest tamales, like good tacos, could never be served in restaurants. Nor, I decided, could they ever cost more than $1.50. The sheer simplicity of certain foods demands an adherence to form that cannot be dressed up or overpriced to anyone’s benefit, least of all my own.

Leave it to my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles to prove me wrong. At West LA’s Monte Alban, a juggernaut of Oaxacan flavors rolled into a modest corner of Santa Monica strip mall, the appetizers menu offers two types of chicken tamales. The tamal de salsa, priced at $2.75, resembles the kind of tamal you would buy from a woman on the street, reaching into her portable cooler for the goods with one hand while keeping ahold of her five year old daughter with the other. Its mundane appearance, however, betrays the distinct joys within. Unlike most tamales, this one has a pleasantly firm crust of hardened, almost crisp masa, not unlike the edges of a well made cornbread. The body of the tamal is weightless, melting in the mouth as a fleeting vessel of flavor. Flavor, of course, is at the core of the entree: a blend of chicken, tomato, spices, and mint that could humbly redefine a taste bud’s relations with the color red.

All of this, however, is merely a prelude to the main masa event: Monte Alban’s tamal de mole. Peeling back the dark banana leaf wrapping of this Oaxacan gift reveals what appears to be a small marble cake. A side of mole poblano, a blend of chocolate, nuts, spices and peppers stewed and distilled into a rich aphrodisiac, sits next to the tamal, ready to bless the holy appetizer like an edible ablution. With one stroke of the fork, mole steeped cornmeal crumbles to uncover a perfectly apportioned layer of juicy shredded chicken in its folds. When all of the elements come together, they result in a tamal experience so rich that if it were on the street, it would have to be served from a portable cooler made of a solid, gold rimmed granite idol’s head. In the parking lot graces of Monte Alban, though, a plastic plate will do. After all, even at $3.75, this is still an honest tamal.

Monte Alban
11927 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310.444.7736

This story is part of a cross-post between Indefinite Articles and The Eaten Path.
You can read James Boo’s “Preemptive Strike” on Chili’s here.

For all the amazing food we have in the Bay Area, the little holes-in-the-wall and the grandiose temples to flavor, every once in a while there’s something appealing about the strip mall meal. I grew up in Auburn, California, thirty miles northeast of Sacramento, a place not exactly known for its food (excepting Ikeda’s, perhaps, a burger joint and produce market popular amongst skiers headed to Tahoe). Once you’ve had your fill of hiking and naked statues, there’s not really much to do in Auburn except to leave it, and head down to the swath of malls that fill the gap between old mining hub Auburn and the state capitol.

When The Eaten Path main squeeze James invited me to do a Chili’s crossover event between our blogs, in which he would review the restaurant without eating a bite and I would actually have to sit down and put some food in my mouth- a raw deal, to be sure- I have to say I got a little excited. I guess there’s a little nostalgia in me for giant parking lots and salmon-pink stucco-plastered walls. So, I scammed a half-dozen friends into joining me, and we jumped into a couple of cars, chanting “Awesome Blossom” the whole way down to San Leandro.

In all honesty, the enthusiasm was fueled more by the novelty of the story rather than the promise of the food. In our enveloping, obese-friendly booths, we inhaled our bountiful platters down in a daze. The fries have that bizarre Pizza Hut quality of making you hungrier as you eat them, and the entrées come across as flavor templates, little more than the Platonic intention of food. My cheeseburger came from that alternate reality of Doritos and Combos, where burger flavor implies a homogeneous blend of mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise.

No, the visit was less gastronomical in nature than anthropological. That giant glowing red pepper floating thirty feet in the sky is the hearthstone of the modern American town. Walmart may have all the deals, but Chili’s, the edgy, margarita slinging Applebee’s, is the place for family and friends to kick back and have a good meal. And as Michael Scott says on The Office, it’s “the new golf course. It’s where business happens.”

But woe, even our cultural anticipation was deflated. Gone are the knick-knack plastered walls, those corporate collections of antiquated signage designed to put us at ease. Gone is the Awesome Blossom, the battered and deep-fried raison d’être of Chili’s (though apparently, it’s predated by the Bloomin’ Onion). Gone is the bustling warmth, even the faux Downtown Disneyland bustling warmth I was for some reason expecting.

Instead, Chili’s is locked in some kind of struggle to reinvent itself, driven by manifest destiny to find that weighty Cheesecake Factory sheen. The menu is a massive tome some twenty pages in length, thickly laminated, and it reads like a webpage with too much design money thrown at it. Thank God for the pictures to help me choose what I wanted.

The one saving grace of the experience was a matter of eerie serendipity. Our waitress greeted us (after an awkward twenty minute wait for menus accompanied only by the screaming of nearby babies), and mid-spiel began staring at me with an odd knowing expression. After a round of questions, it came to light that we both went to Placer High School up in Auburn together, and she remembered me. Sadly, I couldn’t reciprocate.

Here we were, three hours removed from my own Hometown, USA, and this woman emerged from the shadows of the Chili’s bar like a pale blonde ghost. She, like the mini-mall before her, had been blocked from my memory, only to return right on time to deliver me a slice of lukewarm post-Americana.

Jake Mix is a writer, artist and blog editor in Oakland, CA. You can read his work at Indefinite Articles.

Whenever I feel like it’s time for something different, I drive four hundred miles north to Oakland, CA. I give all of my friends big hugs. I bask in the cool breeze of the East Bay. I take a walk through the Berkeley campus. I have a pint of Dragon’s Milk. I order a slice of Sky Pie. I fall asleep on a couch.

In the morning, I go to Jodie’s. I ask for Something Different.

The kitchen crew grills two English muffins in butter. They adorn these glistening, crisp-edged, nook and cranny laced wonders with grilled sliced tomato and shower them with a mix of country hash browns and hearty, chopped bacon. Two flash-poached eggs are laid atop this medley of fried delight, and the entire entree is blanketed in a peppery, tangy hollandaise crafted by Jodie’s daughter. Eggs Benedict flee the scene. America wins.

On my most recent pilgrimage to Jodie’s counter, there was a misunderstanding with my order. I lounged outside the kitchen for an hour to have my taste of Something Different. As yolk flooded the plate and citrus and butter seeped into the bacon fat grinding away between my molars, I realized that something different had become something missing. After a year of vigorous homecomings, I felt only the fatigue of a long trip for the sake of a simple pleasure.

Indeed, as summer in Diamond Bar inches closer to sunset, my homecomings to the East Bay will soon fade out as well. Something different is in short order, but a short order of Something Different won’t be enough.

Jodie’s
902 Masonic Ave
Albany, CA 94706
510.526.1109

The first part of this cross-post can be read here.

In this day and age, it is almost a crime to admit to liking good, greasy food. It is especially fitting in SoCal that the salad—throughout most of history a side dish or appetizer—has taken the place of the baptism: that which serves to wash us clean of the sin of gluttony.

Don’t get me wrong. I like good salads once in a while. But everything in moderation, including health.

When my friend James (of The Eaten Path) stopped by town with his friends Zach and Alex for a wine tasting, I decided to take them to the high temple of the fallen, the gastronomical equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits. This place, of course, was none other than the world-famous Lucky Boy.

I am proud to live in Pasadena. There are great things to do here, and great restaurants: for instance, 750 mL is in South Pasadena; there is Saladang on Fair Oaks; etc., etc. But this was the man who spent a few weeks last summer driving around the South, sampling the best of Southern BBQ. This was the man with whom I had devoured ribs in Seal Beach and in Oakland. He deserved the very best.

At first, James did not want to go to Lucky Boy. He was getting ill, he said, and greasy food would potentially push his compromised immune system over the edge. However, this is the man who has devoted an entire blog to the pursuit of good eating—i.e. greasy food—so it wasn’t entirely too hard to persuade him otherwise. Zach and Alex were both vegetarian to degrees; this fact did not stand in the way of my goals.

Behold the neon-lit, dreary exterior of Lucky Boy.

We stood outside and ordered our food. We each got breakfast burritos, which are two-pound logs of hash browns, cheese, eggs, and meat. Bacon and sausage are the two most popular choices, though they also offer chorizo and ham. The vegetarians omitted the meat. To share, we ordered a side of chili cheese fries and zucchini fries.

Around us were high schoolers from South Pasadena High School, shady characters from Highland Park, and one or two college kids back for summer break. The cars whizzed by on Arroyo Parkway.

How can you describe the breakfast burrito except by saying it is pure bliss? It is heaven, if heaven came wrapped in extra-large flour tortillas. The only improvement could be liberal application of Lucky Boy’s spicy green sauce, of which there was plenty.

And the chili cheese fries? Soft, yielding, every bite like a kiss. A kiss from a beautiful voluptuous brunette saying “It’s all right, it’s all right” on the darkest of nights.

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing is the zucchini fries. These are not huge spears but are instead little curls of deep-fried zucchini. Or is it zucchinis? Because in that one translucent waxed paper bag there must be at least three zucchinis. Four grown men could not even finish half the bag.

After three bottles of wine, breakfast burritos, chili cheese fries, and zucchini fries, it’s fair to say that we each lost about a week of our lives. But life without certain sins is not worth living, just as much as living without friends is not truly living.

Joon Song is an aspiring drunkard and law school student. You can read his wine stories at Vinicultured.

Lucky Boy Drive-In Restaurant
640 S Arroyo Pkwy
Pasadena, CA 91105
626.793.0120

Summer: Enshrined in Americana as the flagship of cookouts, stickball, and dubious water sports, this scorching swindle of a season doesn’t reveal its depressing nature until school is out and you’ve been reduced to a sludgesicle of a working stiff.

When I was a carefree political science major in the city of Berkeley, summer was a time of liberation and growth. The clouds floated away for three magical months, but daytime temperature never went over 75 degrees. Students flocked out, the Irish flocked in, and every walk on campus became a spacious, scenic stroll through the unshackled beauty of the University of California. In the Bay Area bubble, summer would fulfill its Hallmark promise to no end, bringing with it barbecues, hikes, frisbees, and day trips to exotic and unexplored locations.

Now approaching the halfway point of my second summer in Diamond Bar, I’ve come to realize how much I truly despise this season. In the Los Angeles suburbs, daytime temperature rarely drops below 85. I don’t even want to imagine the heat my friends in New York, Washington and Texas are facing. The air becomes stagnant, alternating between dry and balmy as unfulfillingly as the sweat soaked and uncomfortably warm sides of my pillow. My after-school hours as a tutor transform into a dizzying, nine hour barrage of gerunds and participial forms. The payoff for making an effort to do anything depreciates as quickly as the price of oil climbs up the history charts. I try to get away with being lazy, but the payoff for slacking becomes equally devalued in the sprawling infrastructure of this seasonally and geographically futile existence. My body stagnates. My soul withers away. My hat collection is rendered useless.

Fortunately, there is always beer. Quaffing a cold one at the end of a mind-numbing day may not bring me any closer to September, but it does bring me closer to Oktober, and breweries know just how badly their customers need a glass of relief. My personal lineup of summer beers aims to refresh with the subtlest of alcoholic touches. Alaskan Summer and Texas’ St. Arnold Lawnmower offer delightfully balanced homages to Kölsch brewing, harboring just a little bit of everything one could expect under the umbrella of an afternoon beer. When I want to indulge in a more flavorful pint, I reach for a Hoegaarden or (if it’s on draft) a Sam Adams Summer Ale, citrus-inspired works of unfiltered wheat that offer a more complex approach to refreshment. If I need to quench thirst with no questions asked, I pour a glass of Pilsner Urquell, Hofbräu or Baltika 3, single-note European classics as addictive as they are invigorating. And, when nothing less than the bite of a rattlesnake will soothe my parched throat, I pop open a bottle of Shiner Bock, a beer drinking experience filtered through Texas, Germany, and San Pellegrino.

On those lonely summer nights that call for a 9PM nightcap, though, none of these revitalizing refreshments will do. When it’s 80 degrees in my bedroom and I have nothing to look forward to in the part of the future most relevant to my sanity, the only beer that can fill the not-so-chilled glass of my life is Anderson Valley’s Cerveza Crema. A summer seasonal that defies conventional wisdom, this velvety copper ale bears little resemblance to the beer that one would expect in the month of July. In place of bite is a velvety body with a faint, creamy, caramel-tinged head. Where there would normally be hops is a sweet, malty flavor, ending not in a clean finish or lingering bitterness but in a slightly sour twist that all too soon fades out into nothing. Unintrusive and unmemorable, yet altogether pleasant and strangely refreshing, it’s the perfect response to an anticlimactic summer, there to tuck me in after a long day of nothing much at all.

In the wake of America’s love-hate relationship with the petrol pump, one fictional character has the intrepid spirit to take the steps of leadership that pandering politicians dare not consider. On Thursday, June 26, Jack, CEO of west coast fast food chain Jack in the Box, staged the restaurant’s first ever Two Free Tacos Day. Rather than gloss over the greater issue of America’s fiduciary failings, Jack chose to confront cash-strapped countrymen with a double dose of camaraderie.

Achieving what years of obnoxious phone company marketing could never have hoped to attain, this 99 cent holiday for the people puts the state of our lives into immediate perspective: Sure, gas may hit five dollars a gallon by the Fourth of July, but as long as we can buy two tacos for a dollar, do we really have any right to complain? Instead of making poorly guided attempts to deflate the truth, we may as well embrace- or at least characteristically disregard- our addiction to hyper-consuming lifestyles that well surpass the limits of reason and decency. If we’re lucky, history will seize the Jack in the Box taco for use as a cultural insignia, a glistening trophy of America’s incongruous accomplishments.

An explanation for those who are unfamiliar with this post-national flagship of fast food inventions: The Jack in the Box taco, a menu item as old as the restaurant itself, is a cross-cultural synthesis with the power to define a demographic (according to Jack in the Box, that demographic is men age 18-34). Its assembly requires factory workers to unite the organic with the industrial, deftly weaving fresh ground corn and near-fresh ground beef with seitan, soy, MSG, and all other kinds of wonders of the modern age. The result is a product that may contain within it the combined culinary character of our civilization.

The fact that this is the most shameless of gringo tacos stands in full reflection of its kaleidoscopic temperament. Cooked fresh then flash frozen, deep fried then adorned with cheap hamburger trimmings, the Jack in the Box taco is a sapphire of a socioeconomic metaphor. The corn tortilla says, “This land is your land.” The slice of American cheese, peeking out of the shell like a stars and stripes bumper sticker, says, “Resistance is futile. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.” As we live off the hopes and dreams of immigrants while blithely degrading their identities, Jack in the Box offers a border-crossing reconstitution of culture that everyone can love- or at least, for one night, one that everyone can afford.

When the realities of resource management are fully brought to bear on America, it will become clear that the automobile’s time as an icon has come to an end. This is a good thing. Perhaps being forced to walk to Jack in the Box for the next pair of deep fried tacos will help the populace appreciate the genuine gifts this great country of ours has to offer.

On the morning of June 11, Federal Express dropped a large package on my doormat. It consisted of two wholesale boxes of Big Dipper Ice Cream Cones, bonded, sealed and shipped from Memphis less than twenty four hours prior.

The name on the return address was Matt Allen, the man I’ve been proud to call my boss since the day I responded to a Craigslist posting by a company named Ice Cream Man. Aside from being the most genuine and caring employer I’ve ever dealt with (I suppose it goes with the territory of running a business based on giving away ice cream), Matt has managed to win my respect through his love for all things soul. That said, I fully expected that a box shipped overnight to me from Memphis and bearing his name would contain some form of greatness. In short: I was correct. At length…

…The first layer of the package was a t-shirt from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As Ice Cream Man’s outreach director, I had organized a free ice cream social for the patients and staff at St. Jude, so while this gift was not a surprise, it was certainly a welcome addition to my summer wardrobe. Beneath the shirt rested a bundle wrapped snugly in a blanket of packing foam. The bundle itself was mummified in plastic and packing tape, taking up more space than a bottle of wine. Two paper bags flanked the Hefty cocoon, allowing the lasts wisps of the dry ice they contained to vanish as I exposed them to the warm Southern California air. I tossed the packing foam aside and tore through the adhesive and the protective to reveal a simple white take-out bag. After all of the fussing and fighting, I beheld an image I had not seen in well over a year, the time that had passed since I had last seen the banks of the Mississippi.

The dancing pigs, hooves locked in noble celebration as they turn to the tune of their own delicious demise, are the trademark of The Bar-B-Q Shop, my favorite BBQ joint in Memphis. On the morning of June 11, 2008, courtesy of the most famous ice cream man in the world, they surrendered their sweet song to me, 1,775 miles from their home and moments from their destiny.

While I’m not a member of the purist camp of American BBQ, I cannot overstate the difference that authentic slow smoking makes when it comes to a rack of ribs. Even I had nearly forgotten the unmistakable scent of Southern BBQ by the time it began to waft from the oven door. White flakes of coagulated fat melted, sizzled and popped as they were awakened from suspension. The complex aroma of grease and smoke tenderly filled the kitchen, as if history were paying a curious visit to the faceless parlor of suburbia. I inhaled the sweet, subtle soul of the meat. Then, I prepared to eat.

The pleasure of eating Memphis ribs is a sensation that can only be levied by a master of the craft. A subtle smoky flavor permeates every morsel of every rib, from the crisp, crackly, crust to the tender, browned meat to the chewy bits of cartilage subjugated by smoke for the diner’s consumptive convenience. No blackened corner is left untouched, no portion of the rack left unblessed: If cooked properly, a rack of Memphis ribs is enjoyable down to the bone and even two bites beyond.

This is certainly the case with The Bar-B-Q Shop, made apparent by the fact that I unknowingly gnawed my way halfway through a rib bone before realizing I was eating the skeleton of a pig. If that pig could still move, I’m sure its Danse Macabre would be nothing less than an invitation back to midtown Memphis, where the spirits of Soulsville have yet to rest, and dancing pigs aren’t afraid to do the dog right along with them.

The Bar-B-Q Shop
901.272.1277
1782 Madison Ave
Memphis, TN 38104

“I used to live here.” In our fragmented world of third person omniscience, stranger words are rarely spoken with such abandon. Mobility has become one of life’s most imposing axioms, redefining community and putting home on an auction block of opportunity. With every move, we check another brief lifetime off of our to-be lists, making carbon footprints with half-lives shorter than the best of us would like to admit. Capital flies. Time flees. Memories remain in light.

I used to live here- here being Elmwood Ave, a quiet, tree lined street deep in the heart of one of Berkeley’s most family friendly neighborhoods. Of course, the first memories to surface when I step onto the corner of College and Ashby aren’t of people, or families. After all, my year in Elmwood was inhabited by a revolving door of house mates I only interacted with on a need-to-know basis- more specifically, when I needed to know why the malfunctioning internet connection was forcing me to sit in my car to freeride on our neighbors’ wireless networks.

What I do remember when I see my old street is my long walk to work and back home from campus. I remember the disappointing bus ride I would take down College on the mornings I had failed to wake up early enough to take that walk. I remember sitting in the back row of the Elmwood Rialto’s cozy-to-a-fault theater, wishing I were in an armchair at The Parkway. I remember the thrill of approaching the drive-thru mailbox at the Elmwood Post Office, only to realize after I had pulled up alongside it that I was too far away to drop my letter into the box and too close to open my door and step outside the vehicle. I remember the laugh of the bicyclist who snatched the envelope from my hands, slipped it into the box and rode off in glee.

I remember the scent of clay ovens I would catch when making a quick run across the way for naan and the pleasing adequacy of lukewarm chai that the host would offer me as I waited for my bread. I remember the tiny chocolates at the counter of AG Ferrari that I would buy after ten minutes of staring at wines, meats and imported goods that I had no reasonable excuse for taking home. I remember the trips to Gordo’s I would take after examining my wallet and my shelf in the pantry, then deciding I was too lazy to settle for real food. I remember the one meal I had at Trattoria La Siciliana, and how the excitement of having dinner with an old friend and wearing a new pair of particularly expensive trousers distracted me from ordering anything worthwhile.

Indulging in recollections of buildings and food, I step under the eaves of La Mediterranee. Like the offerings of many restaurants in Elmwood, the food here isn’t exactly incredible, until you consider the fact that this, too, is home. Families and college students amble up and down the sidewalk, a bustling scene of collapsible community, a collective soul that takes root at the intersections of life, paying no mind to the physics of being so long as a meal is on the table. I haven’t sat here for almost two years. While life is certainly going on all around me, I couldn’t tell it from the bowl of soup sitting on my table.

The mild, almost quaint flavor of La Mediterranee’s lemon chicken soup is a reminder of the things that stay while the rest of us move on. Not too much cream. Not too much citrus. Not too much pepper. Not too much chicken. Just enough of everything in a soup that’s almost meant to be taken for granted. I dip a morsel of pita into the broth, and for a minute or two, I am home.

The main course, a beautifully prepared set of phyllo savories served with a noticeably tart side of hummus and a few slices of fruit and cheese, arrives with a bit more fanfare. There are probably more notable dishes on the menu, but chicken cilicia is the only thing I have ever ordered here. This marvel of a meat pastry, which wraps chicken, garbanzo beans, almonds & raisins in the fragile folds of thin, crumbly, delectably layered and sugar dusted phyllo, must make someone very proud every time it reaches the table. The fact that I’m eating each roll with my bare hands can only add to its case, I’m sure.

By the time I stroll back towards my car, the sun is setting, and the marquee of the Elmwood Rialto is flashing its neon welcome to the denizens of Elmwood. A long line of dessert seekers wends its way out the doorway of Ici, adding a constantly fidgeting landmark to the landscape of College and Ashby. Crowds shuffle about the entrance of La Siciliana, eagerly awaiting their chance to sit at a candle lit dinner table of their very own. Inevitably, a few diners peel off of the waiting list and head for the more convenient settlement of a Gordo’s burrito.

If home really is nothing more than sharing the same space for a minute or two, then this must be the place.
I really used to live here, and I can barely believe it myself.

La Mediterranee
2936 College Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94705
510.540.7773

I don’t know exactly when I stopped caring about video games (save the occasional evening of Rock Band, Mario Party or the original Super Smash Bros), but I’m sure the time of death wasn’t far from the day I played my first German board game.

During my years as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, I developed a love for European games: Their traditional aesthetic and focus on personable, interactive play presented a welcome contrast to the increasingly immersive and disorienting feel of video games, and as a result I was drawn immediately to the local game store while my peers flocked to the next Playstation release. To be sure, video games carry with them a limitless potential for complexity, sophistication and interaction, but the tangible pleasures of plotting my next move in neatly carved wood and trading quips with my opponents across the gaming table will always be more compelling to me than participation in any kind of virtual world.

When the Examiner announced that he would be making a stop in Diamond Bar en route to his motherland of Indonesia, we decided it would be the perfect opportunity for a night of board gaming, the likes of which we hadn’t been able to enjoy since he moved to Washington, DC over a year ago. It would also be a perfect opportunity for him to introduce me to one of his favorite childhood snacks: the hagelslag sandwich, a staple sweet invented by the Dutch during the late 1930s and imported to Indonesia through the advent of Imperialism. We decided to celebrate the journey, the country and the saturated fats of the occasion by opening the Examiner’s copy of Indonesia and concocting our own rendition of chocolate sprinkles on white bread.

We decided to start with Taiwanese thick toast. The slightly rich, delightfully fluffy texture of the bread would make the perfect base for a dessert, while the thickness of the slices would prevent the sweeter ingredients from throwing the sandwich aesthetic out of balance. Without toasting the bread, The Examiner applied a generous layer of butter to one side, followed up with a moderate blanket of De Ruijter chocolate sprinkles, then sealed the sandwich with the other slice. Exhibiting a flair for elegance, he then cut the crust off of all sides and served the sandwich in bite sized cubes of luscious, buttery flavor.

Elegance is the key word for the hagelslag sandwich. Seemingly destined for the tea parties of the obscure, its combination of white bread, chocolate and pure butter allows our most essential instincts of taste to meld in a way that makes the pairing of peanut butter and jelly seem far fetched. The rich fusion of chocolate and butter resembles the simple pleasure of chocolate ice cream, while the varied texture of the sandwich tickles the roof of the mouth just once before melting together into a swirl of joy.

Being the red blooded American that I am, I decided that the next logical step of our Indonesian invasion would be making another sandwich, buttering it on the outside, and grilling it to a toasty golden brown. The flaky, feathery feeling of white bread fried in butter and the warm, half-melted mass of chocolate inside sent the texture score of the sandwich skyrocketing into regions of pleasure normally reserved for coke addicts. While the original chocolate sprinkle sandwich would make the perfect end to a nice meal, grilled hagelslag would surely make a colonial magistrate’s breakfast for anyone bold enough to deliver the goods. The next time I have friends over to carve out pieces of history through the magic of economically themed board games, I can think of no finer snack to accompany the proceedings.

“Hey, stranger.”

The words crept out in a whisper as the bedside lamp turned on. I laid the back of one hand against my eyelids and circled the other around her waist. I mumbled something about the A-Team, that being the only thought that came naturally to me at this point of the night.

She rolled off of the bed and stepped just outside of the light bulb’s 40 watt jurisdiction. My eyes were still closed, but I had a knack for identifying the edge of darkness at the time. I heard the clinking of glasses and the long, cool exhalation of the freezer. I felt the weight of a bottle in her arms as she slipped back into bed.

“I never bought you that drink,” she explained as she kissed me on the cheek.

“Never too late to come around,” I affirmed, sliding my fingers off of my eyes and wrapping them around one of the glasses. “To mercenaries,” I declared as I clumsily tapped the brim of mine against the side of hers.

“To civilization,” she corrected as she placed her hand over the top of my glass. “Give it a minute,” she warned with a giggle of embarrassment. “This is bourbon, not Jim Beam.”

“Howlin’ Mad Murdock would never approve,” I replied in defiance.

I clasped her hand in mine and took a sip. A 65% incantation of the holy Kentucky ghost shot straight to my nose, bringing a tear to my eye and evaporating straight off of my tongue before the crime could be traced. As the warmth spread through my chest, I coughed and kissed her gratefully on the lips. She swirled her glass in loving derision.

We lay there for a few lifetimes, listening to the two-step of ice cubes taunt a chorus of cicadas who had missed their nightcap.

She broke the soundtrack with a long sip. I completed the silence with my own. It began with a gentle, rounded nose that wasted no time in reaching up along the roof my mouth, brushing a gentle bitterness along the back my tongue without making too much of a fuss about opening the front door. Once inside, a sharp, oaky spice kicked the back of my throat, then tiptoed back to the front of my palate. The spice transformed into a slightly sour kiss, which met with the vanilla tinged sweetness radiating outward from the center of my tongue to complete the motion. She was right: This was not Jim Beam… but it would do.

A late summer breeze broke through the curtains. I say it was late, but there really was no deadline. We let our empty glasses fall to the floor and withdrew into the covers.

The Venetian is quite possibly the most ridiculous of Las Vegas’ super resorts. Featuring over 7,000 suites, 120,000 square feet of gambling space and a five acre pool deck, this larger than life paean to the City of Bridges turns history into opulence like an art-loving dictator. After we had parked beneath the superstructure of the miniature city, it took us almost half an hour to wend our way through a shopping mall, a casino, another shopping mall, and the main lobby of the Venetian Hotel. Once there, an elevator ride carried us up the final leg of the longest road to brunch I’ve ever taken.

Stowed into a spacious corner above the Venetian lobby, the illustrious Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro is worth the journey. After wading through a sea of poshlost’ posing as elegance, we stumbled into a restaurant that bathes comfortably in the true essence of the word. The atmosphere is refined and ornate enough to be classy, yet open and bustling enough to feel casual. Tables and booths bask in the sun, and the bar offers New Belgium 1554 on tap.

While I am a sworn brunch defender, I’ve become a bit skeptical of the brunch ritual: Overpriced eggs, the perennial lack of grits and the placebo-like worship of an idyllic atmosphere have been the foundation for too many late morning outings to convince me that I should pay more than $6 for anything short of incredible. Fortunately, our parting meal at Bouchon was incredible in all the right ways. This became clear when the first complimentary baguette was laid before us, dressed only with a white cloth napkin. I broke off a piece, adorned it with butter and apricot jam, and greeted the morning with the sweet, hypnotic crunch of perfectly toasted French bread, finally understanding firsthand what an old friend once told me about the joy of eating a fresh baguette with breakfast every morning during his tenure in the city of Lyon. Under other circumstances, I would have happily made a meal of these baguettes, but my appetite had been piqued and the menu was open.

We began with a dish of sugar and cinammon beignets. Delicately crisp and crumbly on the outside, ethereally weightless on the inside, Bouchon’s rendition of this brunch classic was as skillfully executed as its baguette. By hiding its mastery of textures and flavors in an innocently plain morsel of bread, it was as if Bouchon was deliberately highlighting the irony of its own existence behind the inflated facades of the Venetian. Likewise, the breakfast Americaine, complete with fresh squeezed orange juice, French pastry and pomme frites, made no effort to hide the fact that it was in fact nothing more than a well cooked breakfast. All of this grace still wasn’t enough to justify the platter’s $22 price tag, but for a fraction of that cost I did have a taste of its highlight: Bouchon’s country sausage, which was roasted to a level of flavor that dwarfed the peak of the Stratosphere.

My other selection was Bouchon’s bread pudding style French toast. Distinguished immediately by its artful construction, this dish selfishly robbed the rest of our entrees of their humble charms. Each rich, porous, buttery layer concealed near-melted slices of baked apple and thin blankets of custard, all married within a deep ribbon of sweet maple syrup and topped with impeccably shaped cuts of fresh apple and a dash of powdered sugar. Put romantically, it was an ivory tower of brioche peering over a land of indentured breakfast rolls. Of course, every tower of Babel must eventually fall, and I was happy to devour my elaborate edifice of a meal before its fragile folds could collapse of natural causes on my plate. If the Venezia Tower were made of brioche, I’d do the same for it as well.

There are many reasons why I could never live in Las Vegas. The staggering hubris of the Venetian is one of them. The warm weekend brunch at Bouchon is not. Nothing short of a robotic Michael Jackson will convince me to renegotiate these terms. Having affirmed this lesson in understatement, I said farewell to the bookhouse boys and drove off into the midday Nevada sun.

Bouchon Bistro
3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South
The Venetian Resort, Venezia Tower
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.414.6200

PICARD: A lot has changed in three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of “things”. We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.

RALPH: You’ve got it wrong. It’s never been about “possessions” - it’s about power.

PICARD: Power to do what?

The fact that Star Trek: The Experience, a testament to Gene Roddenberry’s most idealistic vision of humanity’s potential, stands in the epicenter of humanity’s most quintessentially defacing behavior makes it one of the more compelling curiosities of the Las Vegas Strip. Outside, Starfleet’s insignia, an elegant symbol of the human race’s ongoing quest for truth, knowledge and self-improvement, towers below the Hilton marquee. Inside, our technological and cultural development is elaborately recounted in a museum of future history, where television panels intermittently replay anthologies of Star Trek’s most ambitious imaginations of an evolved species. Guests are beamed into the 24th century, brought face to face with the Borg Queen, and reminded by Starfleet’s finest that each of us holds an opportunity to build a better future.

Shortly thereafter, a costumed employee delivers a pointed reminder to visit the Promenade for the best Star Trek merchandise this side of the Alpha Quadrant. There, two and a half gift shops are filled to the brink with the greatest collection of franchise merchandise I have ever convinced myself to buy. The irony of paying hard-earned money for exaggerated recreations of an unattained evolution is outclassed only by my warp speed consumption and the happiness that ensues. At the end of it all, we fork over a sum of $50 for each of us to take home a photograph of the bookhouse boys on the bridge of the USS Enterprise D, a decidedly material keepsake of the future we can only dream of realizing.

Despite our acute awareness of the fourth wall, the wondrous illusion of The Experience manages to maintain its structural integrity. That is, until we make our way to the recreation of Quark’s bar and Restaurant, Deep Space Nine’s marker for the idea that the economy of waste is indeed a constant of any universe. We are greeted by Rog’l, the spitting image of a Ferengi restaurateur, and left to muse over the hilariously, almost self-deprecatingly thematic menu choices. Three of Six, an uncharacteristically engaging and tourist friendly Borg drone, chats up a group of visitors at the bar, offering to pose for a photograph with his newfound friends.

We decide to break our fast with pints of intergalactic beer, all of which are quite refreshing, if a bit inoffensive. The Klingon Blood Draft, a washed out imitation of a German Märzen, goes down nicely but lacks the round, mellow body of the real thing. The amber hued Dominion Lager is clean and crisp, but similarly devoid of any memorable flavor or texture. The Romulan Ale, a beautiful glass of fanboy nectar, easily outshines both of its flanks, offering a perfectly accessible balance of floral hops, malty sweetness and green food coloring. By the time we finish our first glasses, lunch has arrived.

Sadly, it seems Rog’l has gotten the best of us (as any Ferengi should), passing off some of the most poorly replicated dishes in this sector as the homemade Federation favorites. Picard’s Pockets, a glorified cross of a Jack-in-the-Box pita and a New York gyro, manages to ramp up the arrangement of both while retaining the quality of neither. The French Dip sandwich, a curt nod to a 20th century Earth staple, sheds some light on the 20th century phrase, “I’m so hungry, I could eat at Arby’s!” The Petrokian Sausage Jambalaya, constituting its own personal insult to the honor of the Sisko family, successfully assembles all of the human race’s most historically popular meats in a joyless mess of synthesized satiation. The Class-H taco pizza, adorned with ground beef, lettuce, tomato and quacamole, actually isn’t half bad, but maybe that’s the Romulan at the table speaking up.

The biggest reality check at Quark’s Bar, however, is the Borg Sphere, a ten shot monstrosity of a novelty drink served in a steaming glass orb. Disillusioned by our lackluster meal, we place our order for assimilation, hoping that an absurdly gaudy daycap will rejuvenate our spirits. True to its namesake, the mechanically conceived, over-sweetened blend of cheap alcohol and synthetic mixers does nothing of the sort. It tastes like a combination of Sprite, your college roommate’s plastic jug of vodka, and a 25th century in which all the cultural nuances of Earth’s libations have been successfully downloaded and destroyed by the cybernetic mind of the Collective. As we drain the last drops of lifeless liquor from our orb, a Klingon warrior laughs and orders another round of blood wine for the wedding reception next door.

Hours later, we find ourselves once again sprawled across the hotel room, sipping on the finest bourbon I have ever tasted and throwing away another $11.99 so we can drunkenly criticize bad pornography with a real time example on the television. I look out the window and over the construction site of Las Vegas’ next citadel, a vice of ambition seeking its place among the desert stars. Tracing the outlines of scaffolding and spires, illuminated by the peripheral glow of the Strip and offset by the soundtrack of Super Naturals Vol. 5, I know that the evolution of humanity into a more noble species will not take place in my lifetime. While the mass production of tasteless, overpriced replicator-grade meals has already been perfected and grandiose feats of architectural oneupmanship can be brought to fruition with the wave of a contract, the experience of a civilization freed of primal needs and resolutely united under the banner of exploration is one that, for now, can only be realized in the throes of a weekend getaway.

RALPH: And then what will happen to us? There’s no trace of my money. My office is gone. What will I do? How will I live?

PICARD (amused): This is the twenty-fourth century. Those material needs no longer exist.

RALPH: Then what’s the challenge?

PICARD: To improve yourself… enrich yourself. Enjoy it, Mister Offenhouse.

I’ve been told that carpeting patterns in casinos are meant to be disorienting. Not only do the elaborately hideous murals lining the floors of Las Vegas make it harder to notice the stains of drinks tipped past, they guide the attention of casino guests away from any kind of aesthetic ruminations and straight to the clarity of the coin. It’s a fitting dynamic for the city of sin. One hand of Las Vegas shakes down your senses with an absurdly glorious mashup of amusement park sensibilities and unabashed sleaze. The other shakes down your wallet with the great lie of fortune. Somewhere between the motions, the American soul hitches a ride and hopes for a soft landing.

When I stepped out of the car in Vegas at high noon, I had another kind of sensory overload in mind. For months the bookhouse boys and I had been planning a sojourn to two of the city’s lesser known hallmarks, and our hotel reservations placed us within walking distance of the primary target: the best Thai restaurant in North America. Since every member of the crew was fatigued either from a four hour drive or a 5:00 am flight, we spent an hour sprawled across our hotel rooms before making a trek through paved desert winds to a stuccoed oasis of curried delight.

Tucked into a gargantuan plot of faceless asphalt in the northeast corner of the Vegas Strip area, Lotus of Siam has been attracting Thai food pilgrims for years. The calm that ensconces the nondescript strip mall building and the unassuming decor within provide a stark contrast to the unceasing, unblinking movement of Las Vegas Boulevard. Like every great Thai restaurant I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, Lotus of Siam makes no attempt to distract its diners from the brilliance of its food. There is the confusing exception of a middling lunch buffet in the center of the dining room, but I suppose anyone who walks through these doors worried more about the buck than the bang deserves all the steam trays this city has to offer.

Lotus of Siam’s humble design, also like that of every great Thai restaurant, betrays the wonderfully shocking flavors of its dishes. One spoonful of head chef Saipin Chutima’s Nam Kao Tod doesn’t begin to do justice to the word. Explained modestly as “minced sour sausage mixed with green onion, fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, crispy rice and lime juice,” this appetizer delivers time-bending ripples of spice, salt and citrus over a constantly changing landscape of fresh ingredients. In seconds the relative stillness of isolation from the Strip is swept aside, replaced by a flood of sensory input that puts the “b” in “subtle.”

A similarly taste bud scattering experience can be found in the restaurant’s rendition of Thum Ka-Noon, a “local” dish made of shredded jackfruit, ground pork, tomato, and a plethora of minced and blended spices from the North of Thailand. The softer texture of this dish makes it a tame counterpart to the fireworks show of the Nam Kao Tod, but the Thum Ka-Noon is no less sophisticated in its parsed delivery of myriad flavor.

Illustrating the diversity of the menu, Lotus of Siam’s northern red curry eschews the coconut milk of central and south Thai dishes for an unforgiving intensity. Without the cushion of the richness and sweetness that is typical of Thai dishes in America, this vegetable heavy blend relies on the freshness of its ingredients and the purity of its spices more than anything else on the table. At a spice level of eight, it attains a steadily blistering burn while retaining the feeling of refreshment that comes with the snap of a good green bean and the muted crunch of a perfectly simmered cabbage leaf.

On a more familiar front, duck curry, a staple gem of Thai restaurants, makes an appearance here to put its understudies to shame. Starting with an exceptionally lean cut of duck and a bold red curry base, Lotus of Siam’s roasted duck curry avoids the twin perils of fatty, self-contented meat and timid, hyper-rich sauce. Chutima cuts the curry with a restrained touch of coconut milk, then spikes the dish with a creative mix of pineapples, bell pepper, cherry tomato, basil and red grapes, doing so in a way that preserves the distinct contribution of each garnish as it adds its note of sweetness to the savory composition.

Outdoing both of these dishes, however, is Lotus of Siam’s Khao Soi, a northern red curry that unapologetically wraps itself deeply in coconut cream. This alfredo-like blend is then folded over a heap of boiled egg noodles, garnished with a sparing amount of onion, lime and cilantro, and topped with a second helping of egg noodles, this time deep fried. Mixing the fried noodles with the rest of the dish before eating unlocks an addictively unpredictable combination of textures, again preventing the diner from settling too easily into any single sensation before the next turn of the palate is reached.

In comparison to the dizzying array of spices that populates the menu, Lotus of Siam’s whole fried catfish turns out to be one of the milder, if more exotically presented, dishes the restaurant has to offer. Plar Dook O-Cha, which arranges the golden brown fish on a bed of cabbage, peanuts, cashews, and thin slices of fresh green apple, turns what could be the fiercest of dinner platters into a surprisingly light piece de resistance. Chunks of catfish break away perfectly from the body, and the almost non-existent seasoning of the meat is complemented perfectly by naturally light touches of fruit, vegetable and nut. Yet another synergistic peak of stimulation is achieved when crunch collapses into tenderness and you’re left to wonder where the untouched constituents of your mouth have been hiding all these years.

We stepped out of Lotus of Siam in a complete daze and headed back toward the Strip. Having ceded complete control of our most primal appetence for the day, we caught a cab heading east to indulge our remaining senses in a feast of entertainment.

The Pinball Hall of Fame has been standing at the corner of Tropicana and Pecos for less than three years. Featuring over 200 games, including modern wonders, drop dead cool classics, and noble experiments, it has already established itself as a bastion of bells and whistles unlike any other in the world. In addition to three full aisles of historic pinball machines, the museum also houses a row of classic arcade games and a classic arcade simulator that includes over twenty games for 25 cents a play. It was at this machine that I finally reached level three of Burger Time. I went on to set the day’s high score for Ms. Pac-Man, cheered on by a rapt six-year old girl who proudly announced my conquest of each level; that is, until she inexplicably realized the absurdity of my mastery of 8-bit timing, cavalierly declared, “I’m never going to be a man!” and stormed off, never to be seen again.

After a few drinks at the sports bar next door, the bookhouse boys and I caught a bus to the bottom of the Strip and strolled along three miles of the most morally contradictory distractions gathered in one place. As we set out from the chivalrous spires of Excalibur and passed a charmingly displaced reconstitution of the Brooklyn Bridge, a row of immigrant workers shoved handfuls of escort trading cards into our hands, promising girls in our hotel room in 20 minutes or less. A young couple passed by, strolling their newborn babe under the eyes in the sky and sipping on $1 frozen margaritas in plastic cups. Every building sported an untold number of faces. Every which way led to an ornately carpeted chamber of vice installed in the graces of family friendly frivolity, and every flat surface surrendered one of its corners to an ashtray. In the twilight city, the devil has lungs to spare, and we had only taken our first deep drag of disorientation.

With every report and news analysis that hits the presses, it becomes clearer that the United States is cradled in recession. Yet, for all of the deep-seated flaws that our nation’s thinkers and decision makers have unearthed in purveying the state of the economy, our first instinct is to reach for the security blanket of consumption rather than, say, learn to read.

Of course, six hundred dollars of shotgun tax revenue can buy a lot of desserts, and with the frogurt renaissance of Southern California showing no sign of abatement, consumers continue to flock to PinkBerry and its cold war rivals, still establishing satellites throughout the Southland. The most commanding of these second generation frogurt boutiques move their product in the spirit of Pareto efficency, offering customers a wide range of self-serve options and charging by the ounce.

The result is a microcosm of sorts, swirling our obsession with choice with our limitless urge to consume and wrapping everything up in a true sunshine trend. When faced with the almost intimidating array of machinated dessert components at Yogurtland and Cherry on Top, most customers dart from flavor to flavor in a frenzy of impulse intake, allowing their cups to overflow with the chaos of freedom before even making it to the topping bar.

Notwithstanding his approval of the remedy of consumption-bent tax relief, Ben Bernanke would be ashamed. In a lengthy spotlight on the Federal Reserve, the New York Times outlines the technocratic chairman as “exceptionally methodical…He once told Alan Blinder, his Princeton colleague, that you can learn a lot about people by noting when they fish their car keys from their pocket; Bernanke does so as he leaves the office, long before he reaches his car.”

Speaking from the dinner table of one who reaches for his keys before the office door has a chance to close, I’ve discovered a much sweeter indicator of the method man: the amount of effort expended in the self-service of frozen yogurt. As the rest of the frogurt populace blithely dips its spoon into the sweet pool of extremes and diversions, I am building a more elegant, albeit less exciting, testament to the old fashioned sundae.

First, I layer two primary flavors of frogurt in rings to establish a base. Then I level a third flavor into the center, drawing from years of experience as a spectator at Foster’s Freeze to sculpt a soft-serve sundae crown worthy of The Outsiders. If the parlor isn’t too crowded, I take the time to layer my toppings, placing more substantial items like brownie chunks and cookie dough at the bottom and sprinkling the lighter ingredients evenly over the top. My aim is to channel choice into craft. By favoring an economical design, I miss out on 90% of the offerings on any given night, but walk away with a pure symphony of sugar. My dessert is fashioned as deliberately and single-mindedly as an Ayn Rand character, with the added benefit of a soul.

At the end of this economic morality play, though, I’ve spent just as much money as the girl mixing seven different flavors of yogurt at once. My rationalization of added value can’t obscure the fact that when it comes to consumption, I’m as eager as the next American to be a part of Jack-in-the-Box’s latest three dollar deal. While my neurotic and artistic sensibilities may prevent me from joining my countrymen in frogurt suicide, they don’t prevent me from recognizing the necessary glories of an unfettered yogurt land. God Bless America, and may our tax refunds be spent as sweetly as the carbohydrates of which our laurels are made!