Place: White Castle
Lunch: Eight White Castles, Coke
White Castle has landed on the Las Vegas Strip. It's the first ever White Castle west of the central time zone, and the first non-company owned "licensed" store in the chain's 90-plus year history. It's located next to the worlds most profitable Denny's in Casino Royale. On opening day, they were moving a thousand Sliders an hour, and broke the company's single-day sales record in the first twelve hours of business. The lines were out the door and down the street.
No such problems on a Sunday morning. I walked right up, ordered, and had my lunch (well...breakfast) in minutes. They accidentally gave me two more burgers than I paid for, but hey...that's a happy accident.
The Vegas White Castle has a pared-down menu. There's no breakfast, no fish, and no LTO's. But you can get the classic sliders 24/7.
There IS something different about the taste of these. Something's sweeter. Maybe the pickle or the bread. They seem to be a bit less oniony too. Maybe.
Little Caesar's is getting a bunch of publicity lately with the debut of their Bacon Wrapped deep dish pizza. Basically, they slap bacon onto the sides and bake it in. Everyone thinks this sounds awesome on paper. Everyone I know who's tried it says it's...not so awesome.
Oh well.
My preferred bacon is Farmland thick cut (though I still occasionally splurge on the greatest bacon in the history of bacon), and I buy the fattiest cut I can find. There I am in the supermarket going through the entire stock, throwing aside the lean looking packages. Shoppers who find themselves getting struck in the head by flying bacon packages don't seem to mind, because even being hit in the head by bacon is better because it's bacon.
I fry up the bacon on the lighter side so it's less crispy, plate it, then drizzle some of the excess bacon fat over the plated bacon. For taste, not presentation.
Then I eat all the fatty parts and Chester Cat takes the crispy bits.
I've been known to make a whole meal out of this. Fry up the entire package.
My grandmother was just the opposite in her bacon approach. She cooked standard cut bacon to a perfect crispy brown, then let it set on a paper towel to drain the excess fat. I made some bacon her way recently. Took me right back to my childhood.
My other favorite way to have bacon at home is wrapped around scallops. Whole Foods has a package of bacon wrapped sea scallops shrink-wrapped on a wood plank. Just unwrap it, put the plank on a baking sheet, and bake for 25 minutes. They're awesome...better than Target's "Archer Farms" version or even Trader Joe's. And there aren't toothpicks involved. Use a fork or your fingers, lazy.
But the whole "put bacon on everything" restaurant fad wears thin with me. Maple Bacon Doughnuts has become a popular pastry item, and I don't get it. They just taste overly salty to me...salty and smoky. We've seen chains introduce bacon milkshakes and bacon sundaes. Sorry...bacon is many things, but it is not a dessert item.
I have a bottle of bacon soda in my office. It's for entertainment purposes only. It will never be opened. People ask, but it's staying sealed.
Bacon does work on many levels in pasta. Doing something with bacon and Alfredo sauce almost always works. And one of my mother's regular dinner dishes was Bacon Spaghetti. Fry up some bacon, saute some onion in the fat, add a can or two of tomato sauce and chopped tomatoes. Mix it into cooked spaghetti. She may have baked the whole thing too. I can't remember.
A bacon cheeseburger can be a wonderful thing too, IF the bacon is not pre-cooked. If it's fried to order for your burger, it's probably a winner.
I'm betting that Little Caesar's bacon comes to the restaurant pre-cooked. I can't believe they'd even have the resources to fry bacon to order. And the people who have tried it tell me it's really dry.
Even bacon has to be done right to be...bacon.
