Everything I ate from Sultan's Market last night. No acidity, no heat, no "hell, I'll just shove this in my mouth because it's late and I'm hungry and this is easy to chew" factor, no love.

A reuben sandwich from a small mom and pop place. Thin slices of dried out meat that had a crust on the edge, minimal dressing and kraut. Good fries though and my partner loved their pasta.

We went to Flashback Weekend in Sterling on Friday and I figured there would be a mom & pop place in Dixon to have dinner first. Then I saw a sign for a deli that we couldn't find. Then we saw a Chinese buffet across from a Jimmy John's. What to do, Unwich or Chinese? We went for the buffet...big mistake.
The sign that stated Chinese American Grill Bar plus Steak Seafood on the marquee should have been a warning.
Nearly everything was inedible. I didn't try the American food or Mexican tacos. I first tried the Triple Delight, though I couldn't tell you what the third thing was since all I could see was pork and broccoli. I can say that it promised three delights too many. The roast pork I'm pretty sure was a Buddig product. The fried shrimp were fine, as is anything fried, and shockingly the salmon was quite good. All the veggies were clearly of the frozen variety. Mr. Pie said the fact that I skipped the egg rolls was very smart. We only had one plate each but I was still starving, so my second and last plate was cantaloupe.*
There were quite a few wee ones in this dismal, badly lit dressing room of a place, and it made me sad to think that they would grow up thinking that's what Chinese food is.
Of course, later I was starving and a box of popcorn never does the trick, so I had a burger and a cheeseburger, both dressed with relish, ketchup and mustard (and a bite of Mr. Pie's outstanding corn dog) and all these were worlds better than our "dinner". Yes, drive-in food, the self-serve kind that was stored in little foil baggies in a hot box. So if you're in Dixon...


*The portions were abundant.

Pie Lady wrote:We went to Flashback Weekend in Sterling on Friday and I figured there would be a mom & pop place in Dixon to have dinner first. Then I saw a sign for a deli that we couldn't find.

I'm guessing this must have been Arthur's Deli of which there are a few and not bad for farmland "deli", that you missed out on, well in comparison to the Chinese butt-fet you endured. Their stuff is always fresh and keep quality up. I know of no Chinese in that area that is any better than what you found...well until you get over the border on 88 to Clinton, IA and can hit Yen Ching (serviceable but with the best crab rangoon I've had...I know not truely a ringing endorsement, but it's Iowa)

Actually, far from the worst thing, Arthur's Deli in Dixon (the original I believe) has been pretty good stuff going on 30 years now. Fresh ingredients, interesting combos for their subs. When I feel like throwing dietary caution to the wind, I enjoy their Braunschweiger sub with lettuce, tomatoes & mayo. Yum!

Arthur's Deli
1133 N Galena Ave
Dixon, IL 61021-1015
(815) 288-1110

I'm pretty sure it was Arthur's. Although I'm not sure it would have been open at 7pm, I sure would have liked to find that out! Butt-fet indeed! I might have to use that one in the future.

The Black Oak Arkansas @ Kuma's. If I really wanted to experience the McJordan Burger again, I would have just invented, you know, time travel.

Burgers at Kuma's mystify me, quite frankly: the patty is way too big, its ground bland, the toppings heavy and flavorless. Good news: by assenting to my girlfriend's wish that we try this place just once, I'll now never have to go here again.

Last home Cubs game as the guest of a friend. The people behind us had nachos and they smelled good. I got some nachos. I freely admit the cheese sauce barely resembles anything in the cheese family, but a dab of it on a chip with a jalapeño can hit the spot. The vile concoction that was served with my chips & jalapeños looked like the cheese sauce, but it tasted like the fake butter that is put on popcorn. Not on shred of fake cheese flavor, but an overwhelming flood of nasty butter flavor. At least the chips were fresh and I learned that I don't need to have nachos at the ballpark ever again.

Bombay Wraps on Wells (downtown). Tried 2 wraps (1 chix/1 steak) - flavor was almost passable indian but they were barely warm, the meat is pulverized to the point of easy gumming and I was left with 6 hours of indigestion. Sweet potato fries were mediocre at best.

Cross the street to Siam Rice for a treat.

The Schwartzy sandwich at Eleven City Diner. It's a take on Schwartz's of Montreal's smoked meat sandwich, except ECD's version really let me down - $10.95 for a very tiny portion (although the menu lies and says it's "piled high"), only a pickle and slaw on the side, very thinly sliced, very little fat, dry and a slightly off taste. Other than that, it was a great sandwich.

BR wrote:The Schwartzy sandwich at Eleven City Diner. It's a take on Schwartz's of Montreal's smoked meat sandwich, except ECD's version really let me down - $10.95 for a very tiny portion (although the menu lies and says it's "piled high"), only a pickle and slaw on the side, very thinly sliced, very little fat, dry and a slightly off taste. Other than that, it was a great sandwich.

I had a very similar experience with their pastrami Reuben recently.

Archway Farms honey barbecue potato chips from Target. Literally tasted like vomit.

Tortellini in red pepper cream sauce at Shoreline Brewery in Michigan City. The titular red pepper cream sauce was more like red pepper creme anglais, and the waitress informed me with a scandalized look (it is, she said, her favorite dish) that it's supposed to be a sweet cream sauce. What can you say to that? I paused a moment to still my tongue, and then said (graciously, if I do say so myself) that since it was prepared as intended I do not, of course, expect a discount, but that she was welcome to take my plate. They ended up discounting it anyhow, which was classy, but this along with the grainy dry hummos left me not particularly interested to make that long drive again.

I think it was just my picks -- everyone else at the table was very satisfied. So the moral of the story is this: if you're going, bring me along to guarantee you'll get the good stuff.

Goopy tofu & vegetables from the Pine Yard in Evanston. The veggies were cooked perfectly, but the sauce! So much and so thick. Blech. I asked for a little extra heat in the sauce and there was none discernible.

I made up for it with a cupcake from Bennison's across the street.

Not the worst thing ever eaten, but it may qualify as grossest thing ever found in something edible:
I made a cheesecake in Girl Scout season—it was a pretty tasty chocolate cheesecake with a Thin Mint cookie crust—and froze it for a rainy day. I've been digging out rather large slices for a while now, eating them partially frozen and enjoying every bite, especially when the bottom melted into the crust and made it nice and gooey. Halfway through, I tried cutting a slice and there was this thing in the way. It was covered in chocolatey cheesy goo, so I thought it was just a big block of ice. Gross enough, but whatever. I cut around the other side. I got down to the last two pieces and kept the pan in the fridge; this thing was sticking out of both sides of this slab of cheesecake. I figured it would melt and that would be that. Today I realized as I loaded a piece into tupperware for breakfast, that I did not mix the cheesecake well enough...as I slid the thing out, I realized it was a 2-inch round of unincorporated gelatin. Let that be a lesson to you, kiddies!

Lobster Carbonara at Maggiano's in Oak Brook. Basically inedible - they had put it under the salamander and dried/rubberized everything. And my dad's worst thing he's eaten lately was "roast chicken" at that same meal, which appeared to have been steamed first and just "roasted" at the end. My mom's chicken parmesan was pretty bad as well.

I was craving ice cream, real ice cream. So I went to my local store and purchased some Burnt Carmel with Crunchy Toffee ice cream by Nice Cream.

First, I do like Nice Cream, I have enjoyed many of the flavors she puts out in the past. So I was really excited to taste the burnt caramel. But, it wasn't good at all. It really tasted like burnt caramel, but should be renamed into Too Burnt Caramel. It was also not creamy enough, more on the icy watery side. The bottom even said nicest by 1/11 ( I think) so it wasn't that it was old product.

I am an ice cream fanatic, it's is in one of my top 5, so for me to actually not finish the 1/2 pint and throw it in the garbage, might show you how much I did not enjoy this at all. Worse, I panned the rest of the 1/2 pint to find any toffee and there was none. Maybe I got the few ounces that did not contain any toffee, but come on.

First, I do like Nice Cream, I have enjoyed many of the flavors she puts out in the past. So I was really excited to taste the burnt caramel. But, it wasn't good at all. It really tasted like burnt caramel, but should be renamed into Too Burnt Caramel. It was also not creamy enough, more on the icy watery side. The bottom even said nicest by 1/11 ( I think) so it wasn't that it was old product.

I am an ice cream fanatic, it's is in one of my top 5, so for me to actually not finish the 1/2 pint and throw it in the garbage, might show you how much I did not enjoy this at all. Worse, I panned the rest of the 1/2 pint to find any toffee and there was none. Maybe I got the few ounces that did not contain any toffee, but come on.

i had exactly the same reaction when i bought this last week. i want to support local businesses, but i find nice cream disapppointing. it always tastes more icy than creamy and the burnt caramel was not worth eating. i had toffee bits in mine, but some of them were so large one could easily crack a tooth by biting into it unaware. i also couldnt even finish the 1/2 pint. justjoan

Gourment Dining chicken fried rice.

Villainous.

Ha ha! I like their slogan! "Your Meal Solution Company"
WTF?

(sorry meant to add to this thread and accidentally made it a new topic)
I took an old friend there and since he likes Indian and I had had my eye on it after walking past. Yelp reviews were very positive, but it turned out to be very lame. No flavor in my Chicken Tikka or the Samosas. Afterwards, my friend, who lives in Albany Park and knows Indian, politely suggested Baba Palace, which was nearer my work.

I see that someone else commented on Bombay Wraps below.

This has taught me not to trust Yelp. Need to come here instead.

Somebody brought Affy Taples to my office. I had no idea how amazingly vile a caramel apple can be until I took a couple bites of one.
And I love good caramel apples...

Mikey wrote:Somebody brought Affy Taples to my office. I had no idea how amazingly vile a caramel apple can be until I took a couple bites of one.
And I love good caramel apples...

Interesting, I've always gotten those and found them tasty. Where do you recommend for caramel apples? It would be a good excuse for research.

Pie Lady wrote:

Mikey wrote:Somebody brought Affy Taples to my office. I had no idea how amazingly vile a caramel apple can be until I took a couple bites of one.
And I love good caramel apples...

Interesting, I've always gotten those and found them tasty. Where do you recommend for caramel apples? It would be a good excuse for research.

My local bakery, Harner's in Aurora and North Aurora makes huge, yummy taffy apples but I think they only make them in October.

Pie Lady wrote:

Mikey wrote:Somebody brought Affy Taples to my office. I had no idea how amazingly vile a caramel apple can be until I took a couple bites of one.
And I love good caramel apples...

Interesting, I've always gotten those and found them tasty. Where do you recommend for caramel apples? It would be a good excuse for research.

I'm with you. I've had some "gourmet" caramel apples, and they were clearly superior (better caramel & better quality apple)...that said, I wouldn't go so far as to describe Affy Tapples as "vile", considering they're just apples surrounded by Kraft-cube-style caramel with a stick shoved in them.

I still think it's weird that Fox & Obel sells them though

Pie Lady wrote:

Mikey wrote:Somebody brought Affy Taples to my office. I had no idea how amazingly vile a caramel apple can be until I took a couple bites of one.
And I love good caramel apples...

Interesting, I've always gotten those and found them tasty. Where do you recommend for caramel apples? It would be a good excuse for research.

I've had so many good ones at Disneyland, apple orchards, Mrs Prindables.... Maybe it's the ingredient's?


The "Original" Affy Tapple Plain Caramel

Apple, Caramel (corn syrup, sweetened condensed whole milk, sugar, evaporated milk (milk, dipotassium phosphate, carrageenan, vitamin D-3), vegetable shortening (partially hydrogenated vegetable, palm, soybean, and cottonseed oil, lecithin), natural and artificial flavorings, and artificial coloring).

Mrs Prindables;
The apple is dipped-by hand-in creamy, smooth caramel cooked that very day. Using only the best all-natural ingredients-butter, sugar, cream, vanilla-the caramel is prepared in copper pots in small batches.

Why small batches? It enables us to better monitor the quality and consistency of the caramel, ensuring that each layer is up to the soft and creamy standards that make our caramel so famous.

I was in a taste test the other day for a delightful new beverage. We were to taste 14 samples of the same drink: a 5-calorie drink in strawberry coconut flavor. Does anyone remember the little bottles of strawberry perfume they sold in the Hello Kitty stores about 20 years ago? No? It was a cocktail of that with a twist of suntan oil, and I have two more pints of this to get through.

Pie Lady wrote:I was in a taste test the other day for a delightful new beverage. We were to taste 14 samples of the same drink: a 5-calorie drink in strawberry coconut flavor. Does anyone remember the little bottles of strawberry perfume they sold in the Hello Kitty stores about 20 years ago? No? It was a cocktail of that with a twist of suntan oil, and I have two more pints of this to get through.

i hope it pays well. justjoan

PF Chang's. Had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet, and the wife claims that she had a decent corp dinner at one of them in Denver or somewhere. The rest of the food was passable, tho bland, but their take on "Dan Dan Noodles" was disgusting.\

It was a large portion of steeaming hot, gooey, gelatinous, linguini type noodles covered in three sections with:
1. Julienned cucumber
2. Bean sprouts
3. Some absolutely vile mass of ground chicken in a sauce consisting of oyster sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch, and red pepper flake.

The gloppy meat section was truly horrendous. Just. Pure. Glop. Dark, sodium flavored, jello. Maybe it's me, but I don't see the draw of oyster sauce pudding. Never have, never will. If you can form a peak with your Chinese food's sauce, I don't want it. Others must really like that style though, since it's everywhere.

I am eating it now-mongolian beef and singapore noodles form the 65 in Union station. $8.50 worth of soggy, overcurried, chopped noodles and a green onion tops and micro sized unveined shrimp. UHG!!!!!