What's in a name?

I've had mighty tasty meals in joints with names like...Donut Diner, Forks, Eats, Punk's Place, Terminal cafe, Chat'n Chew and Hoar House.

And not so tasty meals in tight-lip, tablecloth joints with names like Le Bon Repas, Paradise, Bon Appetit, Legends, Primo's, Parthenon and House of Good Food.

So what's in a name? Does a nifty monker guarantee success or insure flopdom?
Would Cary Grant have made it big as Archibald Leach? Roy Rogers as Leonard Slye? Muddy Waters as McKinley Morgenfield? Would you wear a shirt logo'd with Lifshitz on the front? That was Ralphee Lauren's real name. How much 7-Up would 've sold with it's original name, Lithiated Lemon? Trader Vic's useta be called Hinky Dinks. Nobody could give a piece of Pantagonian toothfish away until they marketed it as Chilean sea bass. Rose' was dead as nehru suits til they called it blush. Orange roughy useta be called slime head. How many hifultin customers would could actually fork a mouthful of pig thymus glands into their mouth if some clever chef hadn't named them sweetbreads?
Clint Eastwood opened a packed place in snooty Carmel called Hog's Breath Saloon, but that's Clint Eastwood. He could open a fancy steak joint called Hoof hearted and make a go of it.

Miserable People

I once asked my old man why a certain customer was being so mean.
He smiled, patted me on the head. "Son, there's two kinds of people in the world, happy people and miserable people. Happy people are always happy no matter what, miserable people are always miserable. And their mission in life is to make you miserable. Run from those people. Cause...no matter how hard you try you can't make miserable people happy."

Then he smiled and grabbed my arm, pulled me close. "But we need miserable people."
"Why do we need miserable people," I asked.
"Cause miserable people make the rest of us look good."

The Boardwalk

We all love the new boardwalk. Me, I'm old, I remember the old concrete boardwalk, and the one before that. Here's an excerpt from my book about goin to the boardwalk back in my long ago.

"Got myself a fist fulla change, my collar up, my ducktail combed perfect, skinny suede belt on the side, dungaree cuffs rolled up into a tight peg, ID bracelet round my wrist, crucifix round my neck, and hawkbill knife in my back pocket.

Just finished hammerin 4 Coca-cola caps into the leather bottoms of my size-5 loafers. I'm headin to to the boardwalk. Gonna take a shot at scorin me on a those skull rings or maybe a carved coconut head. Then I'm gonna nosh a corndog and punch in Honky Tonk on the Wurlitzer and ask some girl in cheeky shorts to fast dance"

Well Done Steaks

Well Done Steak! Last night I wandered thru and spoke to everyone...everyone happy and complimentary.
Except one. He ordered his filet "well done". Mr. Cliff, Our right-on-time grill man has been with us 30 years. Wolfgang Puck would have to stand on his grandma's shoulder to kiss his bee-hind. The steak came out perfectly well done. Customer sent it back to be cooked some more. Cliff cooked it for one more minute. Customer sent it back because it was dry. Other than boiling it, can someone tell me how to grill a well-done steak that's not dry?

Food Critics- Why do they exist?

Excerpt from Dino's new book:
Just cause you're capable of forking dead animals in your mouth without blinding yourself, doesn't mean you're qualified to comment on the nuances of fusion of Japanese or Middle Eastern flavors. And it sure as hell doesn't mean you're qualified to condemn the ravioli verde at Chez Pannisse or the cold collard hog'n hominy at Bubba's Snak Shak.

Take a listen to a typical description in Gael Green's book, Insatiable…
“I remember square balloons of puff pastry more delicate than I’d ever tasted…shards of buttery leaves filled with unbearable lightness of crème chantilly cushioning a layer of pear, each slice beatified with a tinge of caramel.”

Well that’s bout the same way I felt the first time I had a warm Bojangles blueberry biscuit, a cold Mountain Dew and kissed my first girl. Most kids would describe Little Debbie Cakes that way if they could. I love dancing through Miss Greene’s syrupy puddles. But if you sat my bare butt on a Cuisinart I couldn’t create a sentence that spectacularly juicy.

But why just pick on the Indie joints? Why not review every dang one of the 2000 Applebys or 1000 Outbacks? Or the uniform colors and sauce packets at the zillion Subways and McDonalds? They sling more hot food in one day than all the indie joints do in a career.

Or why not review the big-box chain snack bars and lunch counters?
Can you imagine some hoof-in-the-mouth blowhard critiquing the harsh lighting in Costco or napkin ply in Target? How bout the $10 hotdog at Yankee Stadium or the garish box-seat décor? Take it a stupid step further and imagine a Times critic commenting on the anorexic poses of a Bloomingdale mannequin, or the hairstyle of a cardiac surgeon, or dissin a Mayo Clinic masseuse cause they detected a callus on her palm or taking a star away from a master plumber cause he flashed butt-crack and didn’t sterilize his snake? Way stupid right?
Bout as lame as if the same people critiqued NY’s finest flophouses.
Yea, a flophouse critic. Why not?
Picture some Brown University, wallaby-wearin Jism PHD working at the bowels of the NY Times who grades the sexual act on 14 categories: Initial impression, creativity, consistency, position, conversation, first course, main entrée, final course, lighting, follow through, aftertaste, depth, corkiness and cost to value.
Here's what she said...#$!@&*!(Sorry, you'll have to buy the book to find out what she said)

Food Cost Theory- Still ain't got one.

There’s plenty of food-cost formulas, but there’s no one-trick-pony magic formula.

I remember my ole man, who counted the NCR register like a blind man feelin somebody’s face, useta say...“If it cost a dollar, you sell it for $3….one third food, one-third labor, one-third everything else.” Funny thing is that FDR food cost theory still works for a sit-down joint like mine. Problem is I ain’t smart enough to get there from here. I wet-dream about keepin my food cost at 33%.

Maybe back in my Pancake House era, when kids thumbed safely to school and drivers used turn signals. Back when country ham was the high-dollar item and it took a bicepy man to fold a beer can, I hovered right around the 33% number. But food prices back then, specially the early to mid-70s, were bout as stable as the needle on a congressman’s lie detector. Remember those even-odd gas lines snaking around the entire block? People pushin their cars to the pumps, signs on pumps screaming...OUT OF GAS! Little ole bun-haired ladies bitch-slappin grown men who butted in line.
Yea, prices were jumpin around so fast, I wrote on the menu…
“Please Order quickly, We Can Only Guarantee These Prices For 30 Minutes.”

SURVIVAL

Excerpt from Dino's New Book:
We've survived a cacophony of calamities.
Hurricane Hazel & Hugo, The Klan, hookworm epidemics, breach of contract, breech births, break-ins, band-sawed fingers, droughts, floods, fights, liquor raids, mom crashin the Lasalle into the side of the restaurant. Even survived the terror of polio epidemics, iron lungs and white-coat scientists peeking into microscopes at squiggly death on Movie Tone News.

We survived commies, bigots, boycotts, The Klan, the threat of nuclear war, gas war, Disneyland, Disney World, the Pachuko Gang, trichinosis, suffocating leases, illegal poker games, stuck draw-bridges, desolate winters, national chains and kitchenettes.

And now we have to survive sub-prime banks, liar loans, Greedy Wall Street,oblivious congressmen and 24-hr doom and gloom by Medusa TV talking heads.