by Constable Aaron Burgers, author of “Shnoo the Hell Is Going On Hnaa”

Choosing snacks is a big deal to me. On the one hand, I have an adventurous, some would say reckless, mouth-hole and I like to try new things. On the other hand, there is nothing worse than getting home only to learn that your new snack is gross, and you have to eat it all anyway because you don’t want to be a wasteful jerk. I’m personally partial to multi-tasking snacks, such as those wasabi-coated peanuts that are delicious and cure sinus infections, or pork rinds, which are delicious and also a potent anti-hangover agent (trust me). It was this partiality that led me to make a horribly, horribly inaccurate prediction: “Even if these cheeseburger flavored Doritos are gross, at least I can review them for Maryburger’s website.”

This prediction was wildly inaccurate because yes, they are gross, but no, I can’t properly review them for Maryburger’s website. They are so gross that the only way I could accurately describe them is to use such a constant stream of profanity and genital-related metaphors that, should Maryburger, her moms, or any of her mean ole sisters read it, I would never again be invited into the burger household. Even if I could use every obscene and filthy simile in my arsenal, I’m not sure I’d really be able to convey how I feel about these so-called chips.

I guess technically they’re called All Nighter Late Night Cheeseburger Doritos, or some damn thing, which clearly means that the Dorito’s people are in some sort of adjective arms race with the people that make Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.

This is one of many Dorito “Late Night” flavors, such as Jalapeno Cat Poop and Xtreme Hobo Vomit. None of them are good, partially because they haven’t made the most obvious one (mozzarella stick Doritos.)

These abominations are called “Late Night” to confuse people with an inaccurate understanding of cause and effect: These chips are called “Late Night.” Parties generally occur late at night. Therefore, these chips must be a party. What these poor devils forget is that, yes, there are many parties late at night, however, at many of these parties, someone drinks too much and pees in your closet. And when you’re eating Doritos, your closet is your mouth. Eating cheeseburger Doritos is like having someone pee in your mouth, only worse, because you can’t videotape it and turn it into a meme.

Before I talk about flavor, I guess I should mention some of the things that cheeseburger Doritos do right. For instance… they come in a bag? Which is pretty good, but sort of de rigeur for snacks these days. But the bag sure does hold them in there, I guess. And they have that same general Dorito texture, that sort of deep fried corn paste that cracks open your fillings. So A++ for that.

Anyway. Onto the taste. What would a cheeseburger flavored chip taste like, I hear you ask? Cheese? Burger? I can see why you would think that, you ignoramus. Oh no. Cheeseburger chips taste like pickles. When I say that they taste like pickles, this might seem like a good thing, since pickles are pretty awesome. Except that these are chips, and chips should not taste like pickles. Especially if they’re advertised as tasting like burgers.

Normally, pickles are made by putting cucumbers in brine and letting them cure. I assume that the Doritos people tried putting these pickles on chips and it didn’t work. So instead they took some cucumbers and shoved them inside the gall bladders of leperous walruses, and those worked out fine. Because when I say that these chips taste like pickles, what I mean is that these chips taste like pickles that were brined inside the urinary tract of diseased Arctic fatslugs.

I should also mention that if you are a human being and you eat these, the suffering will not end at the taste. During my ‘research’ for this ‘article’ I ate a bag over the course of four days. That means that, for four days, I didn’t poop correctly. Because of these cheeseburger Doritos, I gained seven pounds in less than a week. I lost those seven pounds in less than two minutes.

Suffice it to say that these things are the worst. Eating Late Night All Nighter Cheeseburger Doritos is like someone urinating in your mouth, and their urine tastes like fresh-from-the-walrus pickles. They get one half of one burgers out of a possible six, and if anyone ever tells you they are good, they are probably a plumber that is trying to drum up business by tricking you into wrecking your toilet.

1/2 out of 6 burgers

Rita’s Water Ice

Ambler, PA

Swedish Fish Italian Ice, kid’s size. $1.25 I think?

Mention wooder ice to anyone outside of Philadelphia and the following conversation ensues:

“Water ice? What’s that? Do you mean ice water?”

“No, it’s like… flavored ice that’s blended…”

“Oh like a sno cone?”

“No, sno cones are chunks of ice that have syrup on the top. It has a smoother consistency…”

“Oh like a smoothie?”

“No it’s icy and it doesn’t have yogurt or ice cream or anything creamy in it. It’s usually fruit flavored.”

“Wait so it’s not like a sno cone? So what’s water ice?”

It’s hard to explain to outsiders, but growing up in a suburb of Philadelphia, wooder ice (or “water ice”, or even “Italian ice” if you’re especially pedestrian) was always an essential part of the summer. We’d ride bikes for approximately five minutes, get pretty tired and sweaty since we were some chunky puppies, and need to be cooled down. Water ice was always a favorite option because it wasn’t messy and had a tendency to be more refreshing than cream-based ice treats (I can’t think of any examples of those at the moment but it’ll come to me). There were many smaller, Mom + Pop water ice places that bested the franchises in terms of taste and price, but for convenience and flavor variety, Rita’s has always been the go-to place.

Recently Rita’s started advertising their new Swedish Fish Italian Ice on Facebook, and it seemed to be a well-placed gimmick because they got the attention of their target market extremely effectively.  In between updates consisting of the “What zodiac sign wuld u be if u didnt already have a zodiac sign”, “is ur favrite singer lady gaga”, and “what sex poisitin u” quiz results (THANKS, MOM), I saw many a status update talking about the new ice flavor. How, really, could water ice taste like Swedish Fish?

This morning my Associate Taste Tester Phil and I decided to give it a try, and we wondered if we should just get a sample first in case it was really gross. That question was answered for us by the extremely upbeat cashier, who immediately offered us a spoonful without us even prompting her to. It was relatively inoffensive, so we each ordered a kid’s size of it.

My first impression was that it somehow had an element of waxiness that Swedish Fish candy has, and that impressed me. It’s odd, but that waxy flavor is an integral part of the taste experience when eating Swedish Fish. It also had that primary flavor, the ambiguous floral-and-probably-cherry. It was far too sweet, however, and even a kid’s size was overwhelming. By the end of it I felt nauseous, but I guess it succeeded in its goal of being a water ice that tastes like Swedish Fish.

After purchasing the water ice, the cashier gave me a free sachet of Swedish Fish candy (just one– Phil didn’t get any!) What I realized– what I actually knew all along, in fact, was that Swedish Fish are mostly good because of their chewiness and because you can pretend like they are being carried by a tidal wave into your mouth. When you do that with water ice, it’s just stupid and it doesn’t make any sense.

2 out of 6 burgers

By T J Burgers

As a fan of the original Last House, directed by Wes Craven, I felt that it was somehow my duty to seek out and watch this undoubtedly horrible remake. Wait, let me back up for a second. Maybe I shouldn’t have referred to myself as a “fan” of the original. I mean, that was a pretty fucked up movie guys. A “fan” implies a certain level of enjoyment that I’m not entirely comfortable with people knowing that I experienced while watching what amounted to constant emotional and physical brutality set to the tune of utterly inappropriate banjo ditties. So let’s try this again.

As a person who watched of the original Last House, directed by Wes Craven, I felt that it was my duty to seek out and watch this undoubtedly horrible remake, in much the same way a witness of a horrible crime may feel it is their duty to try and pick a guy out of a lineup. I have to admit my hopes weren’t very high for this one. Typical horror remakes gloss over the grit that made the originals special, and I assumed that this was going to be no different. But I was wrong (kinda, I mean, the movie overall is still pretty bad).

The basic story, ~SPOILER ALERT~ in both versions of the film, is that two young, innocent girls do OMGARIJUANA and as a result are both beaten, raped, and murdered by surprisingly vicious strangers. And that’s only the first half. The rest of the movie details how, coincidentally, our plucky team of murderous, insane adventurers end up staying with the parents of one of the newly deceased, with each party none the wiser, and then the inevitable hijinks that occur when the truth is revealed (a situation that should be all-too-familiar to readers who have experienced the joys of having roommates MIRITE).

The original wasn’t frequently violent, but when violence occurred it was extreme to the point that even the most rotten.com-hardened internet nerds would at least squirm uncomfortably while watching it. This is the aspect that I felt the remake would fall flattest in, but it’s perhaps the one aspect that it actually gets basically right. During the rape scene I almost jumped up from my seat and pumped a triumphant fist in the air, but then I thought for a moment and realized how inappropriate a reaction that would’ve been, and then felt a non-insignificant amount of shame for the rest of the film. I later sent myself to bed without dessert.

The problem, however, is that the new film almost glorifies or romanticizes the violence. The original film feels very bizarre, because the violence is generally framed in such a way that makes you feel like an actual observer. Not to mention in the end, after the final throes of gore, the remaining characters are left with a sound sense of “wtf”. But a gray-area approach to violence isn’t cool enough for 2009. There were at least two scenes where rent flesh was shown in extreme closeup just for shits and giggles, and every scene is played for some kneejerk emotional reaction (YAY-you-go-girl if it’s the vengeful parents, YAY-but-shame-on-you if it is the villains), and the ending dispenses with the “question” of the original, instead replacing it with a stupid ending-after-the-ending head-in-the-microwave take-that-you-bad-man bit of pointlessness.

In general, the remake pretty much sacrifices all of the emotional content of the original. The one “good” member of the murderin’ fam is even “gooder”, and is no longer held in thrall by drug addiction (though he should calm down on the wacky tabacky), no one who is good dies (the friend girl doesn’t count because she is a pothead who tempted the heroine into depravity, and thus deserves a sound fatal stabbing), and the only emotional lesson conveyed to the audience after the credits rolled is “dayum dey shure kilt dem sum bad guys right gud”.

Final Rating, 1 out of 5 burgers. It gets one for being accurate in a violent sense, but minus four for not having banjo ditties. I don’t actually give a shit about the other shit or whatever.

Ha ha just kidding. Please make me some socks. It’s the young ladies who need to stop. They are never making me some socks.

Since I am not busy pretending to knit in public, I found the time to take a break from my usual super-strong Assam to try out some Cranberry Ginger Green Tea.

I am not usually a fan of green tea unless I am at some sort of Asian cuisine establishment and it’s automatically served with my meal. I find that the interaction between the tea and the shady Chinese restaurant’s dirty cups really heightens the experience. When I’m at home, though, I always go for a variety of black tea. I totally lied in the first paragraph, that part about evaluating potential healthful beverages. I drink tea because I am an addict and because it’s kind of like drinkable dessert to me. Tea purists find my dilution of the tea with milks and sugars embarrassing, but I do not quake in the gaze of their judgment. I quake because I have too much caffeine in my system and my body shakes involuntarily. Green tea has less caffeine and is not at all like a dessert.

Having told myself I could not drink caffeine after 6 pm, though, I tasked myself with finding a tea that would not keep me up at night. Usually I will opt for a mint tea or some sort of herbal “tea”, but tonight I decided to go for the Cranberry Ginger Tea. I put ginger in everything and I find cranberry generally agreeable.

The tea bag is a lovely silk pyramid bag. It smells incredible, somehow sharp and floral at the same time. This is a bad sign, though, for those of us who are not a fan of drinking perfume.

It may have been my fault for pouring the water before it cooled down from boiling, which I usually know better than to do, but this tea was so bitter. The aftertaste makes me think of what it must taste like to chew a pesticide-laced flower.  It sits on the back of my tongue and will not go away. There is no ginger evident in the tea, either. I am pretty sure someone put potpourri in a tea bag because it smells so good but tastes like it was only made for your nose to enjoy.

This tea is a twee, knitting girl who has taken up residence on a shady park bench in my mouth and she is trying to mask her hipster bitterness with floral perfume. Also, she tells everyone she’s a redhead when she’s really brunette.

(Because redheads are gingers! Did you get it? I knew you did. I’m not being patronizing. Please come back.)

I hate hipsters. 0/6 burgers.

dir. by Darren Aronofsky

review by Dave V Burgers

I’m not going to jerk myself off in verbosity. I’m not going to impress anyone with my writing ability. I’m not going to turn this into a study of false emotional nuance and romanticism by creating things that don’t actually exist in the movie like a lot of critics do. If that’s what you are looking for go listen to NPR with a red rose sticking out of your ass.

“This is a harrowing tale of…” – umm – this is a harrowing tale of shut the fuck up!

Mary Burgers dragged me out to see this movie. I went to see it to appease her. I have my rare kiss ass moments and this was one of them. I probably thought I was going to get nookie. Instead I got my cat taking a shit on my bed when I got home.

Oh, that’s right….the movie.

I thought “The Wrestler” was going to suck. I was wrong. This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. It’s amazing that I’m reviewing the movie even though Mary Burgers de-friended me on facebook in a fit of a “this guy’s a fucking jerk” episode. Am I a nice guy? Not really – fuck you.

Anyway, back to the movie. Rourke plays a past-his-prime pro-wrestler who is down on his luck and living in a trailer park. He faces a crisis when the doctor tells him he has a heart problem and can no longer wrestle. This forces him to face himself instead of continuing to hide behind the veil of glory pro-wrestling has provided. This in turn creates the character arc for emotional and spiritual transformation.

This movie is a character study with heart and soul. The Wrestler builds slowly through the revealing of the characters and the steady pacing of the story.

The subtext is roomy and allows the film to breathe. The characters are developed properly and are revealed at the right pace. Rourke is brilliant; his acting is as natural as I’ve ever seen. All of the other actors are dead-on except for Evan Rachel Wood. Wood goes a bit over the edge with over-acting in a few scenes and is probably the weakest link in the movie – the only weak link. But she does not ruin the movie.

The script is tight and realistic. No bullshit Hollywood lines or catchy phrases.

The story moves along at just the right clip for the story to develop and dramatic tension to build. The cinematography is jerky to give a realistic first-person view of the story. Normally I hate that shit but here it works. The exposition is subtle and naturally placed – no stupid announcements.

30 minutes into the movie it hit me: this movie is great. I don’t mean great like “Lethal Weapon”; I’m talking great like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” great. Most great movies are funny, sad, and soulful. Most of the greats have all of these qualities: “Rocky”, “Raging Bull”, “Good Fellas”, and most of the Spielberg flicks all share them.

“The Wrestler” is one of those movies.

Oh shit am I losing myself here? Fuck off.

Usually 1 or 2 of the Academy Award nominated movies are great. The other nominated movies no one will give a shit about in 5 years. Do you think anyone will care about The Reader” 10 years from now? If you do, be at 13th and Hasker Tuesday night at 11:30pm. You’ll meet a guy there named Johnny Barbuckle. Give him a 5 dollar bill. You’ll then pass out and wake up wearing a red dress and a powdered wig with a fat, bald guy named Horace standing over you barking, “You’re next on stage baby.” I hope you like cigars.

Anyway, the point is “The Wrestler” is a movie people will remember. I’ve been trying to figure out what actually made this movie great and I think I finally got it. The film makers were able to get out of their own fucking way long enough for the story to tell itself.

5 out of 6 burgers

Langhorne, PA

$10.95

I had never been to a Red Robin because I had only seen them in Hershey, PA, the land of Terrible Chocolate, but I was intrigued by its gaudy, bright red decor and that it claimed to purvey GOURMET BURGERS AND SPIRITS. Luckily, I had the opportunity to eat’n'review before going all the way to Neshaminy to see the Watchmen movie. I sort of wanted to try the Burnin’ Love Burger but there is no way in hell I am asking anyone for a Burnin’ Love Burger. I didn’t order Moons Over My Hammy the one time I’ve been to a Denny’s since they cleaned them out of Pennsylvania, and I don’t use any of the various sizing systems ridiculous trendy eateries try to trick me into using. You will never hear me asking for a size “Gotta Have It” vanilla ice cream, so don’t even try, Coldstone. This is definitely something I should be telling the whole internet!: I have a weak digestive system so instead of risking Burnin’ Love in the middle of Watchmen, I opted for the Bruschetta Chicken Burger.

I opted for water instead of any of the fancy sodas or lemonades they had, which I kind of regretted because my friend’s lime-ade was delicious. On the plus side, I think a fancy soda would have been ruined by the garlic in my sandwich. The burger was a slab of grilled chicken breast topped with diced tomatos, melted provolone, lettuce, and apparently pesto. The website said it was served on a “rustic ciabatta roll” or something but I guess it was pretty substandard because I usually really buy into that yuppy trendy-bread-of-the-moment thing and their ciabatta was not very memorable at all. It was probably the pesto that was so garlicy– to the point that I didn’t even know it was pesto until I looked it up. I assumed it was guacamole into which someone had accidentally poured an entired bottle of chopped garlic.

The garlic overpowered pretty much everything. For a bruschetta burger, I wanted to taste more tomatoes, olive oil, basil, and vinegar. I think substituting pesto for a really strong bruschetta topping could have worked but I really don’t think I was tasting basil.

Next time I go to a Red Robin, which will likely be never since I’m not going to go all the way out to another county just for that purpose, I would probably opt for an actual burger made out of meat since they claim those to be their specialties. I’d just like to apologize to everyone in Bucks County for the garlic breath I had that night, and everyone in Montgomery County for the garlic breath I had the next day, despite all the teeth-brushing.

3/6 Burgers because it was pretty ok.

]]> http://www.lovelyburger.com/?feed=rss2&p=151 6 http://www.lovelyburger.com/?p=148 http://www.lovelyburger.com/?p=148#comments Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:57:23 +0000 maryburgers http://www.lovelyburger.com/?p=148

I got farther into “Two Girls One Cup” than I did into this music video.

And the music from Two Girls was better.

0/6 Burgers

Arnold’s Way
Lansdale, PA
Raw “Pizza” w/ avocado: 7.95
Raw Raspberry “Cheesecake”- ~$5
Raw “Chocolate” “Mouse” Pie ~$5
Banana Whip- $2.95

When you first walk into Arnold’s Way, you are greeted by two things: an image of a young man labeled “Arnold at 18- 44 years ago!!” and Arnold himself. Perhaps this is a testament to the raw diet he so vehemently supports and shills, but dude does not look much older than 40. There are other posters and articles plastered all over the store, one of which was a news article about an employee of the cafe who used to be a fat opera singer who lost weight by becoming a raw chef. The initial good feeling I had about the cafe faded because who the hell wants an opera singer who isn’t fat?

Arnold was nice enough to let us in and make food for us shortly before closing, though. I got a salad for my mom, a banana whip for my little brother, and a raw pizza, a raw cheesecake, and a raw chocolate “mouse” pie to share with my sister. You may wonder how I can eat that much, but I am serious about opera singing, unlike the chef who worked there.

Arnold was pretty curious about my little brother, who has severe autism, and the kind of diet we force-feed him. I severely alarmed him by telling him that one of my little brother’s favorite foods is hot dogs, which are full of preservatives. Thankfully Arnold schooled me about autism and how it wasn’t my brother’s inability to breathe during his birth that caused brain damage; it was really the vaccines he got months after being diagnosed. This was a relief to hear because I found out I can cure my brother by feeding him raw food instead of hot dogs!

I feel kinda bad taking jabs at his attitude considering he was an otherwise pretty cool guy. The problem is that you never want to think that people who are really gung-ho about an unorthodox lifestyle will actually be some living stereotype that makes the “unorthodox” elements look like “wacky bullshit” just by virtue of being associated with the other wacky bullshit the practitioner believes in.
That is to say that if you actually believe autism is caused by vaccines it makes your decision to never cook your damn food seem even more ridiculous than it already sounds.

Unfortunately my brother was really uninterested in the banana whip we got him, so I was forced to stuff it in my gob. It was really quite tasty. It is kind of like a really thick banana ice cream without the ice cream because we do not put the dairy in the raw food. Anyway, it is a tasty dessert and ostensibly pretty healthy so I didn’t feel so guilty for inhaling it.
6/6 Burgers

As for the pizza, it was not a pizza. It was not a close approximation of a pizza. It was some salad on a flax crust with mushrooms and tomatoes and some sort of tomato sauce. I shared it with my sister and though it looked small, it was incredibly filling. For a pile of uncooked vegetables pretending to be a pizza, it was actually delicious. I am really picky about pizza and the only place I liked around here closed because the creepy old guy owner slept with a 15 year old, so I need some replacement pizza. If I were mean I’d judge this as a real pizza, but I am nice so I will judge it as a salad with a dumb gimmick.

5/6 Burgers

My little sister ate most of the “mouse” pie (I am so annoyed by typing that!!) but I had a fair amount (opera singer in training here!), enough to know what was up. The pie crust was some more flax bread. It was inoffensive but not really tasty. The body of it was carob-coconut pudding. I hate coconut! There was no coconut advertised and I was mad. It wasn’t present enough to completely ruin it, thankfully. Carob is a legume that dogs and vegans, both of whom are too dumb to know the difference, eat instead of chocolate. It was pretty good pudding-on-flax, but I am not going to pretend like this is anywhere near as good as an actual mousse pie. The “pizza” gave real pizza a run for its money, but this is a joke in comparison.

3.5/6 Burgers

I saved the most delicious and most puzzling for last. The first few bites of the raw cheesecake were really surprising.  It tasted actually kind of like a cheesecake, aside from the liquid texture. This also had a flax crust but it was confusing my brain with its natural ingredients and lack of actual cheese and cake. About half-way through, I felt really full. I really wanted to finish it but I couldn’t. And every time I thought about finishing it I felt full. This went on for a week, even after I had thrown the rest of it out. I then lost so much weight that when I went to my audition for the Curtis School of Music, they rejected me for being too skinny.

Arnold’s Way ruined my music career.

Thanks a lot.

(6/6 for the cheesecake)

Anybody who knows the Lady Doctor Burgers knows she loves two things: 1. talking in third person, and 2. drinking tea. She often gets tired of the first, but never of the second.

One of her– ok I’m tired of this shit– one of MY favorite varieties of tea is Thai iced tea, specifically the magnificently tasty kind you get in Thai restaurants that are hyper-sweetened and you have to stir the evaporated milk mixture in at the top. You know what I’m talking about, right? I’ve often expressed interest to others about making it at home, have researched the methods, but have never found the means to successfully recreate the experience at home.

I am told the key is:
-Thai red tea
-evaporated milk
-about 80 pounds of sugar

Serve chilled and enjoy the hell out of it.

The problem is the elusive first ingredient, the Thai red tea. I have been to just about every Asian market, small and large, in the Philadelphia area, and have never seen this stuff. Maybe it’s because I can’t read Thai (I am working on it, goddammit) or I’m overwhelmed by the amount of tea at these places, but I have just never encountered it.

In my journey to have THAI ICED TEA AT HOME!, I have experienced lingual hell. The first Thai Iced Tea product I saw was a friendly-looking orange beverage in a glass bottle at Assi, the large Korean market where all the non-Teavana products mentioned in this review were purchased. Thinking I had struck gold, I bought a bottle each for Reverend Evelyn, Commodore Xiane, and myself. I brought it home to refrigerate it, eagerly awaiting the moment I would finally have THAI ICED TEA AT HOME!.

It tasted like hot dogs. I can’t believe I was so surprised that something so orange tasted like hot dogs, but there it was. The drink was suffused with this awe-inspiringly disgusting Hormel brand smoked flavor, which is something I did not want anywhere near my tea. I was put off the idea of THAI ICED TEA AT HOME! (or elsewhere) for a while.

Tasting it again in its proper environment, a restaurant, I was once again enthused about trying to have it in the comfort of my own dirty kitchen whenever I pleased. I even had some from a street cart in Portland and it was just as delicious in a plastic cup as it would have been in those swanky tall glasses they serve you with at the restaurants. What was the secret to achieving perfect, portable Thai iced tea?

I thought I had found it in DeDe Instant Thai Tea Powder. I wasn’t completely naive going into it, but I was far too hopeful. I was given a brush with reality when I ordered a bubble tea, Thai Iced Tea flavor, from the Assi Bubble Tea stand, and it had a mild, but still unpleasant, smoky flavor. This should have deterred me, but I had already purchased the tea powder, and I knew at the very least it would be fun to write about.

Before I even got to try the DeDe powder, however, Prince T.J. gave me Thai loose tea from Teavana. I knew, then, that I could create

THE ULTIMATE THAI TEA SHOWDOWN

(I need some WordArt there. Send me your fanciest WordArt, readers)

I made them simultaneously, and tasted them at pretty much the same time (though I used a palette cleanser because I am a professional, you see.) to have a fair idea of how they measured up back to back.

Packaging:
DeDe Instant Thai Tea Powder:
The powder had a cute, cheery, colorful wrapper announcing the ingredients and the value of it being 3 in 1: sugar, milk, AND tea.
5/6 burgers

Teavana Thai Tea:
The loose tea was rolled up in a Teavana bag. Kind of generic.
3/6 burgers

Preparation:
DeDe:
Boil hot water, stir. Indeed instant.
6/6 Burgers

Teavana:
Holy god so you have to boil the water, and then pour it in a SPECIAL TEAMAKER or tea ball or whatever you use because it’s loose tea and requires all sorts of special tools. Then you have to wait 3 minutes for it to brew. Fortunately I really enjoy the Teavana teamaker; it’s extremely novel.
5/6 Burgers

Appearance:
DeDe:
Unbrewed it looked like chalk dust. Brewed it was bright orange, which was not a good sign to me. It was highly reminiscent of the first bottled Thai Iced Tea I purchased, and the thought of hot-dog tasting tea made me think it looked like food-processed hot dogs. Hot dog alchemy. This is making me nauseous.
1/6 Burgers

Teavana:
There’s something very pleasant and potpourri-like about their loose teas. Brewed it looked like any black tea.
5/6 Burgers

Taste:
This is what’s most important so I’m giving it a 12 burgers rating system.

DeDe:
It didn’t taste like hot dogs, that’s the good news. It took me a couple sips to figure out what it DID taste like, and I finally settled on kettle corn. What the fuck, guys. Tea should not taste like any savory junk food. Sometimes tea tastes like a basement. Sometimes it tastes like a flower. Way too often it tastes like someone’s front yard. But in my estimation, it should not taste like anything that you could buy at Wal-Mart’s HEALTHY VITTLES section.

I made my mom try it and she said there was something “oddly comforting” about it, and I felt less bad for basically treating her like a guinea pig and approaching her with the good ol’ “Here, taste this! It’s disgusting!!!!” maneuver.

3/12 Burgers for being “oddly comforting”.

Teavana:
It’s pretty good, though I detected a faint smokiness. I was afraid it was leftover burnt kettle corn from the other tea, but I am figuring out that people think that Thai tea should taste like something that’s been left to rot in a Jimmy Dean factory. Thankfully, it tasted less like smoked meat than slightly fragrant tea, and I was able to enjoy the whole cup. It does not taste like the tea they serve at Thai restaurants, unless evaporated milk is really that big a factor. Maybe it’s not amazing because it has Hawaiian coconut in it, which is a good way to ruin anything.

Do you want to ruin Christmas? Put Hawaiian coconut in it. The cult TV show “Twin Peaks” steadily got worse because of Hawaiian coconut. It is a well-known fact that every time a komodo dragon dies, Hawaiian coconut is found next to its body.

Teavana could have been onto something if not for Hawaiian coconut.

Also, some jerk named “Dreamer” on their website claimed in her review that drinking this tea would make me feel “so special”, and I did not feel special afterwards at all!

8/12 Burgers

I have not ended my quest to find the perfect means to enjoy THAI ICED TEA AT HOME!, but I feel like I have gotten closer to finding it.

The winner:
Teavana Thai Loose Leaf Black Tea-
21/30 Burgers– It would have been more if I felt “so special”.

The loser:
De De Instant Thai Iced Tea Powder

15/30 Burgers– which I think is really way too generous.

I’ve once before ordered a turkey burger in a diner, and was disappointed, but I figured I’d try again at American Star because you just have to trust something that is so American.

I thought about ordering a milkshake but I realized I was going to eat some burger and fries and could not also eat a milkshake. I know that I ate burger, fries, milkshake and cake at the same time regularly from 2002 to 2004.  I will remember September 17, 2006 forever as the day I acknowledged defeat after a two-year battle waged by the combined forces of every kind of fat. I just can’t cram them all in any more. I apologize to the readers of lovelyburger.com.

So I ordered some water. Naturally it was some metallic-tasting tap water, but floating an anemic slice of lemon with a strange mole-like brown mark. I believe Mary T. was also a victim of dermatologically-afflicted lemon. I can’t really fault the American Star for serving free unfiltered tap water—I’m not some kind of racist against Americans—but I wish more restaurants would invest in water filters. The kind that attaches to the faucet works well, and it’s not that expensive or time-consuming, unlike refilling pitchers.

The ice cubes were not aesthetically pleasing, either. I prefer several cubes. I got a huge chunk of glacier. Again, I didn’t pay for the water, so I guess I am just trying to say what I would try to do if I owned a diner. Pay attention, Evelyn G.!

Our burgers arrived quickly. I had ordered the Turkey Burger Deluxe, which includes lettuce, tomato, onion and fries. I thought the menu said I was supposed to get cole slaw as well, but I didn’t get any. I award the American Star an extra burger for the lack of cole slaw. I wasn’t looking forward to eating it even though I knew I had to be a champ about it for the sake of my loyal readers.

MEAT. This is important to a burger. I couldn’t tell if my burger was really turkey, though! It sure was juicy, and it tasted and was formed
like a sausage patty, so it was a completely successful turkey sausage burger. However, I prefer my burgers thicker and more obviously one type of meat rather than another.

The fries were okay. They passed the crispy-then-melty test. I don’t know. They were just some regular fries but not even regularly-good enough that they attained some measure of perfection in being just some regular fries. I quote from one of my favorite novels, Middlemarch: “…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.” No one is visiting these fries’ tomb, but it’s because they did nothing good.

The two slices of tomato were juicy but not special. The onion was cut far too thin. I hate limp, watery iceberg lettuce. Pickle: acceptable.

CONCLUSION:
It’s a bad sign for the burger when the bun (toasted kaiser) is the most memorable part. I wish I could eat the bun without the burger, actually. Still, I rate the entire experience at 3 out of 6 burgers. It probably deserved 2 but I ate more than 3/4 from my plate and I would again, and I can’t give the impression that my standards are too low.