Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Bread Meats Bread

7-9 North Bridge

Edinburgh, EH1 1SB

by Beau Cadiyo

A friend of mine from high school recently got in touch with me to say that he sometimes checked this blog to see if it was still active, but that it seems to have "gone dark."  

I'm not saying he is a racist, but I am not sure how to finish this sentence.  

The nerve!  I admit, I have taken a very small break from writing here.  I could blame life - an international move, career changes, an expanding family of children beautiful enough to represent various international clothing lines but not so perfect that when they walk down the street they catch the attention of pilots flying at 30,000 feet and cause airplanes to fall from the sky.  But actually, the slowdown happened a long, long time before all of those things came to be.  To wit: ten years ago, I took a job with NPR.  Yes, the very same NPR that all of you liberals love.  On my first day, my boss sat me down and told me that I would have to stop blogging, as I was so opinionated and blunt in my reviews of sandwiches that people would think I was potentially biased, and it was the role of NPR to not be biased.  I, as a presenter, had to be a blank slate, without any interesting facets or personally-held opinions.  

As my maternal grandfather would have said: is this justice?  And why would a state-funded media outlet demand objectivity from its paid mouths?  

But I was young, and needed the money.  Five years of blogging momentum halted almost instantly; my ideas and opinions were shelved, suppressed, held in.  I mean, in 2010, I took a month off and still wrote 71 posts - and then, it went downhill.  

But, like Saddam Hussein, "I can change!"  A decade of no food reviews has left me hungry.  Plus, I run the number one food blog in Ohio.  Or, at least, I used to be number one, and used to be in Ohio.  

So, Mr. Frank Bart Chandler, you are no racist, or, at least, I don't think you are.  I don't know you now - the last time we spoke was in maybe 2000, and life has intervened.  It is interesting to think that our paths have diverged so radically since we grew up together.  I still have a memory of you in the back of a minivan with Francis Kuhwald, maybe coming back from a retreat in eastern San Diego county, and you were listening to The Breeders on a Walkman, both of you singing something - "last splash."  I remember having never heard the song you both loved so much, and being so jealous of you at the time for being able to listen to that song at will, and feeling left out.  Last year, I was playing something for my son - maybe Rage Against The Machine, which also makes me think of you and your mom, when she pulled your CD out of the player and smashed it because of the lyrics "fuck you I won't do what you tell me," when really, maybe it was everything else going on in her life, and I just want to give you both hugs, or maybe I was playing him the Mighty Mighty Bosstones - but then a song came on, and I asked Alexa what it was, and she said it was The Breeders, and I had a flash of such a strong memory, and I thought: "Huh.  I was jealous of them listening to this?"  

And as much as I hate to admit it, this blog has gone dark.  Black.  Noir.  

No longer.  

I do not know what it will turn into.  I DO know that I want to write more, and am committing to writing 52 posts this year, and to discuss my most deeply felt opinions about sandwiches, to delve deeply into nuances of flavor and texture and experience.  I want to get back into the sandwich game.  

Get back into?  Fuck that.  This is so old that it is being written on Blogger.  I fucking started this game.  

I'm back.  

And the Cali Burger at Bread Meats Bread conflicts me.  On the one hand, it is a superior imitation to an In-N-Out burger - at least, I have to assume that they were trying to copy it, and ended up surpassing it.  On the other, I still hate it when people call California "Cali" - it is still the easiest way to tell if the person is not actually from California.  But something about Britain inspires people to put on masks and costumes and act as if they were American.  Walking down the street, one is guaranteed to see a few things: 

  1. A NASA hat, jacket, or t-shirt.  British people are obsessed with NASA.  
  2. A Yankees hat, and probably something related to the Patriots - a shirt, hat, jersey.  They are also obsessed with teams named after a group of people who beat them in a war.  
  3. Something advertising a real US college or university that they have never visited, much less attended.  UCLA, Harvard and Yale are the most popular - there is a store, NEXT, that sells tons of college merchandise from these three places.  I have no idea what the Brits think they are signalling by wearing this, but clearly they want to be American college students.  
  4. Something from a fake US sports organization.  My favorite was the "Mid-Pacific American Baseball Champions Sacramento 1977" shirt a woman was wearing at a bus stop, but there are tons of made-up leagues and events that people wear on their shirts that often don't even make any sense.  
(The good thing is that if you see someone in something from, say, SDSU, or Villanova, or for the Cleveland Cavaliers, it is safe to assume that they are either American or actually know something about the team they are pushing, and it is safe to walk up to them and strike up a conversation.)

So the Brits, actually, just want to look as if they are American.  The Americans, meanwhile, either wear Columbia or REI jackets (everyone here wears North Face or Patagonia - brands that Americans used to have a monopoly on, and used to be a guaranteed signal of tourists, but no longer) or something with a Canadian team on it to act as if they are not American, without realizing that looking less like an actual American and more like a pretend American will make them look British.  

Sigh.  It reminds me, often, of when Stephen Colbert interviewed my former Congresswoman Marcia Fudge and asked her what it was about Ohio that made people want to leave earth.  Maybe we all just want to escape the shame of being ourselves, and we will do what we can to show others we are whatever we are not, so long as it is not us.  

Regardless, friends, Beau Cadiyo is back.  Salve.  

Monday, December 14, 2020

Embo

29 Haddington Place

Edinburgh EH7 4AG

by Beau Cadiyo

Proposed new rule: if a person in a discussion says "just think about it" and follows that up with an argument, they automatically lose credibility and should be taken less seriously.  For example: 

"Just think about it - the reason Trump lost is because Biden had better pollsters."  

"Just think about it - if we don't go into this market, the competition will capitalise on our delay and seize the initiative and we will fail."  

"Just think about it - if we don't go on a date, you will never find true love."  

The only reasons to say "just think about it" in the context of an argument are: 

  1. The argument is about the future, so it is inherently speculative; 
  2. The argument is an attempt to explain something in the past, but is actually an opinion they want to present as a fact for which they have no data.  

Either way, the person saying "just think about it" is attempting to draw causation where the evidence is lacking, and is trying to cover up for that fact by distracting their audience with a plausible logical conclusion.  

Whenever I hear someone say "just think about it..." I tune out.  I automatically assume they are either incompetent or they are being intellectually dishonest with me.  Then I think about it whatever I like.  This is the path I recommend to you, my friend.  

The bacon rolls at Embo are excellent, but what is even better is the service - friendly, cheerful, and kind.  They greeted me so warmly on a cold Saturday morning that I felt as if I was a regular; the double, priced at £3, is a bargain for this strip of shops, and, with the smiles, well worth at least a visit; I think I may become a regular there soon.  

Friday, November 13, 2020

Hungry Wolf

16 Iona Street

Edinburgh EH6 8SF

by Beau Cadiyo

If Republicans are the party of idiots, Democrats are the party of the gullible.  

If they weren't the party of the gullible, they would see what should be blatantly obvious to everyone watching American politics from abroad right now: Donald Trump is doing what he has done so many times before by accusing his opponents of doing in secret what he himself is doing in plain sight.  Whether he is breaking tax laws, sexually assaulting women, pandering to foreign despots against America's interests, or trying to steal an election, he is pointing an accusatory finger with his right hand while his left commits a crime.  Whoever he is accusing professes innocence, and is so busy defending themselves that they don't think to attack back.  Meanwhile, Trump gets away with whatever he wants.  Nothing has changed on his part and, sadly, the Democrats show every sign of being taken by it again.  

Biden is the perfect victim.  He is nice.  He wants to give everyone a hug and a pat on the back.  He wants to forgive the people who want him dead.  He is, in other words, weak; he is an Omega dog, rolling on his back.  He is nothing to fear.  

As George W. Bush once said, "Fool me twice, shame on you."  

Trump is, I hate to say, actually smart here.  He is reading the situation correctly.  He knows that the rules are there for the suckers, for the ignorant, and for him, the rules are made to be broken.  He is stacking the necessary government officials in a way that might actually allow him to stay in power illegitimately.  For his legion of faults, he knows how to play the amoral and immoral game of power at a professional level; for all their years in Washington, Biden et al are mere apprentices here.  

If they weren't apprentices, they - and every other freedom-loving American, and perhaps world citizen, would be going full Machiavelli on Trump and his goons.  They would be organizing shifts of volunteers who would videotape everyone going in and out of any Trump property, and the White House, the same way Trump supporters harassed voters.  They would block roads in Washington and near the Trump golf courses; they would storm the greens and fill the fairways with holes, making them unusable.  Heck, these freedom fighters would be following Trump's lackeys home and setting up surveillance on them from the street.  They would track Trump's simpering gimps and follow their children to school.  They would blast music at the White House, Noriega-style, day and night.  They would shut down the ability of Trump's organization to function by destroying his minions' basic human sense of security, attacking their hierarchy of needs.  

And they would investigate the claims that the Russians hacked the vote in Ohio, and the Chinese hacked the vote in Texas, that the Florida vote was also supplemented by undocumented Cubans who boated over in late October to stuff ballots and then boated back.  There are videotapes of this happening on YouTube.  Look it up, sheeple.  

The Democrats would seize the initiative.  

But then again, I am just a simple sandwich blogger.  What do I know about complex political manoeuvring?  I am probably misreading the situation, and the transfer of power in America will go off without a hitch and without any need to, say, battle over control of the military on January 21 because two people are claiming to be Commander in Chief and trying to get the military to take out their opponent.  

Speaking about taking out one's opponent, I have one final fantasy.  William Consovoy, one of Trump's attorneys, once argued that Trump could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it.  If Biden was to get into office, I have this recurring dream that he would ask Consovoy and his family to the White House, then have Consovoy repeat his argument.  Then, Biden would give a signal and Consovoy and his family would all be trussed up like Christmas turkeys.  Biden would take a couple of pistols from the Secret Service and ask Consovoy to make his argument one last time, with his family in danger.  

Then, Biden would let them all go, and shake Consovoy's hand as they left.  Because Biden is a good man.  

And the burgers at Hungry Wolf are good, too.  I hope that this place survives the pandemic, because really, everyone should eat here.  

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Tesco Superstore

7 Broughton Rd

Edinburgh EH7 4EW

www.tesco.com 

by Beau Cadiyo

On Thursday, I was researching a potential customer for work.  On their website they bragged that they had locations "All Along I-90."  

"I-90?" I thought.  "Which interstate is that?"  

And Jesus wept.  

I brought up Google Maps to confirm my suspicions, and saw the familiar route laid out from New England to Montana.  I zoomed in and saw Ohio, and zoomed in further and saw Cleveland, and then Dead Man's Curve, and wondered: is there a list somewhere of all of the dead men who have proven that name right?  I saw Historic Asiatown and imagined the first Asian settlers in Cleveland, and what their experiences must have been like - I assume that they were coast-dwelling when they left Asia, and I wondered what they made of the Cleveland winters, and how they made a living on Lake Erie, and if it was a better life than they would have had if they had stayed at home, and what happened to their descendants.  I saw Irishtown Bend, and thought of a lecture I had attended before I moved away where the speaker described the shantytowns that Irish immigrants occupied on the west bank of the Cuyahoga, and how they looked out from their huts toward the millionaires of the East Side.  I wondered if they were ever angry at their lot, if they ever cursed the day they left Ireland, what dramas existed in their communities.  I saw Tremont and its most prominent map pin: the Christmas Story House, and wondered how many children's Christmas dreams were inspired by that Hollywood standard, and how many adults felt a sort of false nostalgia for an ideal that never existed, and then remembered that I had grown up with the little sister of Zach Ward, the actor who played the bully, and how the one time I had hung out with him as an adult it was also with his wife, who was pregnant, and his best friend, and how later it turned out that his wife was having an affair with his best friend, and how angry I was about that when I had heard, because in reality, he was about the nicest guy you could imagine.  

And then, in a rush, there were the specific memories of being on I-90.  There was the surprise trip I took to Chicago, in the middle of winter, when there was a sudden cold snap and it was -10º and there were snow drifts blowing across the lanes and I realized that the girl who was driving could not talk about anything other than running and herself, so I challenged her to say something that did not involve either subject, and she failed.  All weekend, she failed.  There was one particular early morning drive to get breakfast with Mike, Meredith, and Ted at the West Side Market cafe, driving West with the sun in my rear-view mirror, and I passed the sign for Brahtenahl and realised that I knew nobody in that mystical no-go land for very rich people.  There was the time in February, just before Valentines Day, 2015, when it was 2º outside and I was driving into work and a convertible passed me on the right side, top down, the driver in a tee-shirt and shades, and I thought: "Holy shit - THIS is Cleveland Strong."  And there was January 3, 2014, driving back from Montreal, trying just to get out of the Canadian ice; we had tried to get back a day earlier but the snow had piled up and so we had pulled off into a hotel on the side of the road, frozen and bitter, and I had vowed not to spend another cent until we got to America again, and then when we were finally in Buffalo, we stopped at a diner that turned out to be a mob hangout, and when we got back on I-90 I was overcome with relief, cruising smoothly back home.  

And something seemed off on the map, sort of like in a story where there is an alternate universe and everything is just off enough to make the reader a bit uncomfortable.  I looked closer, zoomed in and out, and realised that, in the five years since I had left, things had changed...a bit.  But that was not quite it.  I felt like I was looking at a map of a place that I had no personal connection to.  I started looking up places I knew; Bac's had closed.  Bonbon has closed.  The Ontario Street Cafe has closed.  

The Ontario Street Cafe?  

When my grandfather died, my sister inherited boxes and boxes of his writings - records of his half-mad ramblings against individuals, entities, the universe.  On one, he had listed wrongs that people had committed against him, real or perceived, and next to each one he had written: "IS THIS JUSTICE?"  When I thought of the nights spent on those plastic benches, with random nurses and shift workers sharing the booth with me and my friends, buying $2 glasses of Black Velvet and sending one to the guy in the lounge suit trying to chat up a girl spilling out of her jeans because he had been cool to me earlier and I wanted to give him some social proof...how the fuck did Cleveland let this happen?  Am I imagining ten halcyon years in that city?  Are all of my memories being erased, slowly and irreversibly, by time and distance and progress?  Is that why the map looks so different?  

Then I realized that it was not the closed restaurants and bars that felt off, but the fact that there were no Google Maps Favorites.  Anywhere.  Zero.  That couldn't be right; I had plenty when I moved away, and I don't think that they just expire, do they?  Then I felt stupid.  I was on my work computer, and it does not have any of my personal favorites saved on Google Maps, so of course no pins showed up.   

But I HAD forgotten I-90, and I realize that I-90 has forgotten me, Cleveland has forgotten me, and that so much of my life has been relegated to the dust bin of history already by moving away, and simply by being alive.  That has been a theme tattooing in my head recently: the complete and utter transience of our memories, and memories of ourselves.  This is particularly piercing now that I have a son and I know that every day he is forming new thoughts and memories himself, and I get to guide him on that path, and at the same time I have memories that he will never know, and my father has memories that I could only guess at: what the inside of his schoolroom in Africa looked like, the smell of his mother's hair after it had been washed, the feel of his medical scrubs when he put them on for the first time, how he felt when he first kissed my mother.  What did his father, my grandfather, think when he became a silk baron in Lyon in the 1920s, after being a German prisoner in World War I, and what did he think as he fled Hong Kong when the Japanese invaded - what did they pack up, what did they leave behind, never to see again?  And what about the other trillions of memories that are being made daily - do we accept that they will be forgotten one day, totally erased, as if they had never existed?  That fucks me up: not the idea that we will be forgotten, but that our memories will be forgotten, are already being reworked, destroyed, even in our own minds.  Death will come, one day, to me, and I accept that; what is more difficult for me to accept is that my own experiences will vanish.  

And I want to matter to Cleveland the way Cleveland matters to me, because it does matter to me.  To me, it is still the greatest place I have ever lived, the best city with the most beautiful community.  I have so many fond memories there, and...well, I am disappointed in myself that so many of the places I used to go, like the Ontario Street Cafe, won't be there when I return.  And don't bring up Lady Luck Casa Lounge II.  FFS.  I was supposed to return in May for Eric's wedding, and then it was pushed back to October, and...well, America, you aren't handling this pandemic very well.  Dare I visit the week of the election?  I mean, the memories that I would form would be incredible...

Having said all that, one thing I would like to forget is the coronation chicken sandwich from Tesco that gave me food poisoning.  I should have learned my lesson the last time.  

Sunday, July 26, 2020

McDonald's

137, 138 Princes St
Edinburgh EH2 4BL

by Beau Cadiyo

I keep seeing protests in America where people refuse to wear masks because they think that mask laws are a liberal plot to restrict their freedom.

For those who believe that the government is trying to restrict freedom by making them wear masks, they should also remember that the EPA also does not want them to drink gasoline.  If they want to take direct anti-regulatory action to oppose government infringement on their freedom to do whatever they damn well please, even if it has a negative health effect, I suggest that protesting this particular EPA regulation may be beneficial to everyone.  The best way to protest this might be to drink a gallon or so - perhaps while burning plastic and inhaling the fumes.  Oh, and inject some disinfectant while you're at it - remember, the New York Times LIEberals think this is a bad idea.

McDonald's is the same everywhere, but what struck me was the predominance of iceberg lettuce, and how tasteless it is.

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Greggs

Greggs
21 Elm Row
Edinburgh EH7 4AA

by Beau Cadiyo

Three points:


  1. If someone claims to be an "Instagram Influencer," it means that they take photos of their breasts to get attention.  Actually, the title "influencer" for any social media platform seems to be a self-admission that a person doesn't have qualifications or skills, or any reason to have an informed opinion on any subject, but is fully capable of paying to get followers on social media.  
  2. It is time to recognize that this is no longer the Chinese Disease, the Wuhan Virus, the Kung Flu, or any other name that associates it with China.  COVID-19 has now become a completely American Affliction, and other countries are right to treat us with suspicion, deny us entry across their borders, and treat us with a presumption of infection.  
  3. Related to point two: Trump and AMLO are meeting soon.  It would give me a huge amount of pleasure if they made a joint announcement that a brand new wall was being built along the border, and Mexico was paying for it - but that it was being built to keep Americans from sowing death and destruction south of the Rio Grande.  

Greggs is open again in Scotland after months of being shuttered.  I started with surprise when I saw the door ajar, and walked right in for a bacon roll.  It was good, but I have to say, my own home-cured bacon, with free-range scrambled eggs, a morning roll from Crombie's, and a dash of Heinz ketchup, was far better - and more satisfying to make. 

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Middle Eastern Fast Food Take-Out

Middle Eastern Restaurant
Detroit

by Beau Cadiyo

I have been watching the COVID-19 debacle with INCREASING ALARM from my safe space away from the LIBERAL FAKE NEWS.  It has become INCREASINGLY OBVIOUS that the only real way for TRUE AMERICANS WHO LOVE DONALD TRUMP AND AMERICA to fight the disease is GO THROUGH EACH OF THE FOLLOWING STEPS:

  1. Go outside and try to get the disease.  You won't be able to no matter how hard you try.  
  2. Really want to stick it to those liberal elites?  Stop social distancing.  Find some other Americans who love President Trump and who have symptoms of the disease, but who watch Fox News like winners.  Go get a beer and drink it with them at their house.  Share beers - do a tasting, and drink from the same glasses.  
  3. Eat the same foods.  
  4. Stay inside, and get close to them.  Touch legs.  
  5. Kiss them.  So what if they are men too - this isn't about comfort, or heteronormativity, it's about America, goddammit.  
  6. Get up and go to the bathroom.  Notice that it hasn't been cleaned in a while?  So what - lick the toilet bowl.  You still won't get the disease.  Do it for our president, you fucking pussy! 
  7. On your way home, find other people who don't believe the LIBERAL MEDIA LIES.  Show how much you love freedom by SNEEZING IN THEIR FACES.  Make sure their eyes are open when you do (physically and metaphorically, of course).  
  8. If you start to feel sick, tell people on Twitter that you are showing symptoms.  (All other social media is controlled by leftists like Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin.)  Then, plan a party ASAP and issue an open invitation to anyone who LOVES AMERICA to come over and show how much they HATE THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA AND THE WASHINGTON SWAMP by licking your saliva and mucous off of plates.  Remind them that THIS IS FOR AMERICA!!!  
  9. Whatever you do, DO NOT GO TO THE HOSPITAL.  My cousin was at a private Zoom party with Sean Hannity and overheard him saying that this whole "disease" is part of a plot to get REPUBLICANS to go into hospitals and support socialist Obamacare medical procedures and undergo abortions (yes even the menfolk).  No matter how bad it gets, DO NOT GO TO THE HOSPITAL.  STAY ACTIVE WITH YOUR FOX-LOVING FRIENDS.  
  10. GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!  DON'T TREAD ON ME!!!  LIBERATE KUWAIT!!!  STEVIE WONDER!!! 
And at least the Middle Easterners in Detroit take their citizenship seriously enough to keep their stores open during this fake news panic so that hard-working Americans can earn a living, unlike all of the UN-AMERICAN places like McDonalds (immigrant Irish), Burger King (monarchist), Wendy's (feminazi) or Subway (reminiscent of New York, which treated our president so unfairly).  If you are a Republican in Michigan, support America by riding the bus without a mask, buying everything you can from open businesses, and lick public toilet seats for Jesus.  

USA!!!  USA!!!  USA!!!