Today is Kinda like Christmas Eve

  

You might be asking yourself "What the hell is Brian talking about?" "How come he loves Christmas so much?" "Why hasn't he posted a blog in weeks?" "How did he get so tall?" "What happened to all the dinosaurs?"

All good questions deserving good answers and my response would be to completely avoid everything except for the first one because it leads into the reason why I'm writing this post.  Tomorrow is none other than March 21st aka the true start to one of my favorite times of the year; MARCH MADNESS. 

Nothing but college basketball from the wee hours of the morning until the dust settles in the evening.  On the eve of March Madness I barely get any sleep because of how excited I am, very similar to Christmas Eve.  So, since I never blogged about my Christmas festivities, the following pictures are from one of the greatest Christmas Eve meals I have ever had thanks to my loving family.

(Part of me wants to just post these pictures and let them do the talking, but the other part of me is too excited about this food for me not to add a few thoughts)

How do you warm up for a meal?  With meats and cheese of course.

LOOK AT THAT PRESENTATION!  If I remember correctly, I had 7 of these bad boys.  Who would have thought they'd be so good!

Nothing wrong with a few drinks around the holidays.  Tomorrow and the weekend will most likely feature a variety of beers while I take in all of the college basketball games, but on Christmas Eve I had a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  My grandfather also keeps the good stuff hidden below and probably thought I wouldn't find it... but I did!

Essentially the Duke Blue Devils of the meal.  Fried Dough is something that always shows up at the meal and is expected to be there, but no one thinks about it as the main event.  Granted, it's served after the antipasto and before the fish and all that good stuff, but it's my favorite part of the meal and can easily stand alone as the best of the best aka DUKE.

Egg Nog.  Why not?

Boom.

Orange slices are there to give me the necessary vitamins to keep such an aggressive pace at the dinner table.  Eating them is kind of like taking a breather while running a marathon.

Now I'm back at it!

Crazy eyes in that picture, but you try posing while a piece of fried dough is coming your way.  Not as easy as you think.

Fishy Fishayyyyyy

Bacon in the corn.  This is how you revolutionize the side dish game.

Chicken with prosciutto, fried eggplant, and fresh mozz on top.  The best part about this was that my aunt had so much left over that I took an entire tray home with me and ate this for lunch or dinner for a week straight.  Not. Mad. About. It.

Anddddddddddd dessert time!

At this point I was sleeping.  No joke I ate myself into a slumber and was able to wake up just in time for a picture, a glass of milk, and a few cookies.  After that it was right back to the recliner in the living room to lay down and attempt to breathe normally again.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this completely random yet in my world 100% topical post.  As I leave my office to go home and enjoy March Madness Eve I hope you and yours can do the same.  The madness begins tomorrow so we should all remember to wear royal blue, cheer for Duke no matter what (even if they;re not on), and pray that my bracket comes through and wins me some money!!

Dinosaur BBQ

In honor of this weekend and how I was supposed to go to Syracuse to see a bunch of my friends from the field of Admissions, I figured now would be as good of time as any to blog about my experience at Dinosaur BBQ.

Tons of people have recommended this place because they know I like BBQ so there was a lot of hype around it.  At first glance I wasn't impressed.  The outside of the place in Syracuse looks like a weird shack/barn hybrid, but it did have some cool artwork on the outside seen below.

When did dinosaurs learn how to ride motorcycles?  And how come that girl isn't helping "Old Man Winter"?  Is she really just going to let him get attacked by that little dinosaur right in front of her?

And it looks like this same girl is serving all of these dinos... maybe run away instead?  I mean they're dinosaurs.  They're probably going to eat you after they eat the food your bringing them because they're dinosaurs.  Be a little smarter.

At least this dinosaur knows his place and is serving instead of eating.

Anyways, the inside of the place was nicer than the outside, but not by much.  In fact, it was really cramped and crowded because the place is so popular.  I'm pretty sure the place opened at noon and we got there at 11:59am and couldn't sit down anywhere but the bar.  No biggie there, but within 2 minutes of us sitting down there were 40+ people standing behind us waiting for a table or a spot at the bar to open up.

So to start my Dinosaur BBQ experience I sampled a few beers on tap.  Can I remember what they were?  Absolutely not, but I know they got better as I progressed through my flight.  I'd say beer was reasonably priced, but I didn't come for that.  I came for what's pictured below.

PULLED PORK.  Forget about that pool of gravy that you just want to drown yourself in.  Forget about that mac and cheese that had some crazy spices intertwined with it.  Forget about that corner piece of cornbread.  The pulled pork was off the chain.  It was so tender and juicy that it melted in my mouth.  After the first bite I knew why so many people came to this place and why so many people kept OPENING THE DAMM DOOR AND LETTING THE FREEZING COLD AIR IN.  The BBQ was delicious!  And props to Drew for sharing some of his BBQ Beef Brisket with me because that was fatty and delicious too.  I'd say the meat there was some of the best meat I've had at a BBQ place.

Going back to the sides, the cornbread was good, not great.  I don't think any cornbread can compare to the one at Spicy's on Long Island (which I will hopefully blog about later).  I ate my piece and then Drew's EXTRA ONE THAT HE GOT, but it could have been better.  The mac and cheese had this crazy spice to it that I've never tasted before.  No idea where it came from or how it happened, but it was so different that I loved it and hated it at the same time.  That's something that you just need to try and judge for yourself.  And let's not forget about the mashed potato swimming pool.  Next to the pulled pork, this was the best part of the dish.  I literally wanted to shrink down to a mini version of myself and bathe in it.  If I go back (when I go back), I plan on getting all of my sides as mashed potatoes with gravy because it was that good.

GO HERE.

The Best Snapple

Each person has their favorite Snapple, but I'm here to tell you, based off of scientific facts and mathematical derivations, that Mango Madness is the best flavor. Really think about this for a second. When you go to Stop & Shop and wanna buy a case or a 12-pack of Snapple, don't you wanna get Mango Madness? Oh, but you can't because they're not sold in 6-packs or up in grocery stores. Snapple knows it would cause mass hysteria if they sold them in bulk and they wouldn't be able to keep up with demand so Mango Madness has to remain more of a rarity.

 

If you think Pink Lemonade or the regular Iced Tea is the best then you sir (or madam) are wrong.



This is AMERICA

I've stumbled across quite a few hilarious images of AMERICAN related things that really made me laugh that I needed to share.

All restaurants should have steaks that look like America.  Just imagine sitting down at a nice restaurant and ordering "The America... Medium".  I get goosebumps looking at this hunk of meat wishing I could order it.

This is just downright funny!  Our country is so food focused that I bet quite a few houses were sold because some fat asses thought "Free Pizza??  I mean, we do need a new house so why not?"

Hahahahahahahaha... I love the idea here, but toothpaste on a hot dog might be where I draw the line.  No one wants to bite into a hot dog and be reminded of brushing their teeth.  I can't knock the hustle, but even American themed toothpaste has no place on a hot dog.

Unfortunately Billy Bob pictured above is no longer with us.  He suffered a heart attack after his attempt to eat the Sparkle Tower Burger, but he went down doing what he loved.  Honestly, that's completely made up, but you gotta admit, that could have happened.  This guy looks like the last guy that needs to be attempting a burger challenge.  The poor guy is a sneeze away from having a stroke, but in 'MERICA we respect that!

I love cheese, but really?  Come on now!

  

I'm going to close out this post with a picture of my wife in 80 years.  Yes, that puts her at approximately 100-110 years old, but she will love bacon as much as me.  Ok probably not as much as me, but my future wife won't be afraid of a little BLT like this.

The Original Buffalo Wing

This was more or less a coming home party for me because of how many wings I've inhaled over the years.  What you are about to lay eyes on is the tale of me going to the home of the original buffalo wing!  There was a ton of note worthy things that happened to me while visiting Buffalo, NY, but this is near the top of the list (nothing beats meeting the majority of the Bruins!!!!).

The outside of the place was nothing special, but at the same time it could of looked like a shack and I still would have been excited.  This is the home of the ORIGINAL BUFFALO WING aka my eyes saw a mansion instead of this barn looking building.  Knowing that I was about to feast on such a legendary treasure made my eyes tear up with joy.

Up first was a cup of buffalo chicken soup.  I saw it on the menu and had to ask about it.  Our waitress gave it a good review so my hands were tied and I had to order it.  Spoiler Alert here - this was the best part of the meal.  Not that the wings I'm about to talk about were bad, but this soup was amazing.  It had the right amount of heat mixed with creamy goodness mixed with chunks of tender chicken.  One of the best soups I have ever had to be honest.  The only soup that can hold its own in a toe to toe match up with this buffalo chicken soup would be a bowl of New England Clam Chowder, but I think the chowder would need to be in a bread bowl in order to beat it.  That's how highly I thought of this soup.  Top notch.

Then came the wings.  There were four of us so instead of us each ordering a dozen or whatever, we decided to get the biggest order they had which was a bucket of wings.  Kind of disappointed that the wings didn't come in a physical bucket, but they dumped roughly 50 of these bad boys on a pizza tray for us all to share.

Fontaine was clearly excited about them and rightfully so.  There were a ton of them and at the end of the day they were pretty damn good.  Tons of sauce, good amount of meat on the bones, and a nice pile for us to choose from.  But to be honest, they weren't anything special.  Would I eat them again?  Absolutely, but I doubt I'll ever get a craving for these particular wings.  I'd rather get an order of Kickin Buffalo Chicken Strips from Friendlys any day, but I'd also rather get that than most things in this world.  Overall I'd say the wings get a B to a B+ from me, but the experience of going there and having an original buffalo wing was an A- (due in large part to that soup).

And just because I took the picture and wanted to use it, take a look at this NO LOOK aerial shot I snapped:

McDonald's Fish McBites

You read that right. I ordered and subsequently ate a "shareable" size of McDonald's new Fish McBites. Since I'm writing this blog post you know I'm still alive, so they weren't THAT bad, but they weren't good.

It was this past Friday when I dared to be dangerous because of Lent. For the next few Fridays I can't eat meat so I'm reduced to PB&Js, things with cheese, and fish related items, so when Fontaine, Kelsey, Drew, and I were on our way up to Buffalo to catch the Bruins v. Sabres game, Fish McBites came my way.

To be honest, I was so hungry when we stopped that I was prepared to eat anything. Once we got inside and looked at the menu, I saw the Fish McBites and that "fishy fishy" song popped into my head from the commercial so I had to try them. Unfortunately I couldn't understand a word the girl taking my order said (English was far from her first language) so I ended up agreeing to the "shareable" size (which is for 2 people) and a large everything else. Not the best $10 I've ever spent, but they weren't THAT bad. They were more or less bit-sized fish sticks aka exactly what you would think. Would I eat them again? Yes. By choice? Probably not. After slamming down the 40+ McBites they gave me I think I'm ok with not having a Fish McBite anytime soon.

Pizza & Cookies

So DiGiorno is trying to revolutionize the frozen pizza game with this pizza and cookies combo. I gotta tell ya, on the surface, I'm all in on this. I love cookies and I love pizza so what's not to love about the combination? Quick answer: the price.

I'm a fan of both quality and quantity when it comes to food, so this pizza/cookie combo might not be worth it for me. A frozen pizza is a frozen pizza and cookies like these are cookies that are good not great. Instead of rolling with DiGiorno, I'd rather opt for a box of Ellio's pizza like I'm back in grammar school hangin out at Jeff Velleca's house or even a few Mama Celeste pizzas. In reality, I could get 7 Mama Celeste pepperoni pizzas for the price of 1 of these DiGiorno ones so I can't say that this is really good.