United Sammiches of America

I hate tomatoes, but I love sammiches
LOCATION: Richard’s Bake & Shark - Maracas Bay, Trinidad. “I found her $2000 sunglasses and she was so happy she wanted to buy me a bake & shark. I told her ‘NAHIE’, just add me on facebook” - @steups After purposefully trying to get myself stranded in Miami 12 hours prior, I woke up to a sustained round of applause, only to realise that it wasn’t applause, but rain - and I was home sweet home in Trinidad. Not long afterwards, @steups blew up my digits, because it was BEACHDAY x MARACAS for Roxie’s burrday. Not gonna lie, the idea of Maracas x Bake & Shark first ting in the morning made it feel like it was my burrday.  Everything on Maracas was unusual on this day. All the morning rain had cleared by the time we came over the hills. It turned out to be a gorgeous day, with just enough clouds to not kill you with that unforgiving and unrelenting sun. Richard wasn’t there. The water was unusually calm, and there were more ripples than there were waves. We spent a startling 3 1/2 hours in the water. There was absolutely NO LINE at Richard’s, and it seemed like they were actually serving shark and not catfish, in the bake and shark. However, the most bizzare thing might have been the guy who was trying to swim out to meet his buddies in their boat, with a bag of 3 Bake & Sharks, while one of them tried to retrieve the bag with a net, before it got soaked. I’m sorry for the guy who got the one at the bottom of that bag, because it ended up going for a little dip in the water, and probably looked nothing like this bake & shark in it’s untouched state: Today I was given two generous hollywoodesque fillets. It was shark on shadon beni on garlic sauce on tamarind sauce, on top of shark on shadon beni on garlic sauce on tamarind sauce - inside a fried bake. I essentially had created a sammich inside of a sammich. The longest wait must’ve been getting around the condiment line, because I devoured that sammich in record time. I mean, I annihilated it beyond recognition of what must have come before in that royal castle looking box.  In addition to the condiments I added were, lettuce, slaw, cucumber and thousand island. It laid out perfectly, and came together even more magically. Doesn’t this stuff just make you want to lick your computer or cellular device? There’s no need for me to further explain this bliss. There are no more superlatives that’s already been covered in this Tumblr. It’s already been done.  However, it was a burrday party beach brunch lime afterall, and thus, the ice-cream plans fell through, and were replaced by more food and drink of course. Why not? So first there was the obligatory visit to Zahir aka The Jean-Claude Van Damme of gyros on Arapita Avenue, before walking down to La Havanna for NO SHOWER HAPPY HOUR. Perfect ending made even more perfect by the Coco Lounge go-go dancers flexxing on top of the wall entertaining drivers-by and patrons of other establishments, right under the grace of the moonlight. It wouldn’t be Trinidad otherwise.

LOCATION: Richard’s Bake & Shark - Maracas Bay, Trinidad.

“I found her $2000 sunglasses and she was so happy she wanted to buy me a bake & shark. I told her ‘NAHIE’, just add me on facebook” - @steups

After purposefully trying to get myself stranded in Miami 12 hours prior, I woke up to a sustained round of applause, only to realise that it wasn’t applause, but rain - and I was home sweet home in Trinidad. Not long afterwards, @steups blew up my digits, because it was BEACHDAY x MARACAS for Roxie’s burrday. Not gonna lie, the idea of Maracas x Bake & Shark first ting in the morning made it feel like it was my burrday. 

Everything on Maracas was unusual on this day. All the morning rain had cleared by the time we came over the hills. It turned out to be a gorgeous day, with just enough clouds to not kill you with that unforgiving and unrelenting sun.

Richard wasn’t there. The water was unusually calm, and there were more ripples than there were waves. We spent a startling 3 1/2 hours in the water. There was absolutely NO LINE at Richard’s, and it seemed like they were actually serving shark and not catfish, in the bake and shark. However, the most bizzare thing might have been the guy who was trying to swim out to meet his buddies in their boat, with a bag of 3 Bake & Sharks, while one of them tried to retrieve the bag with a net, before it got soaked. I’m sorry for the guy who got the one at the bottom of that bag, because it ended up going for a little dip in the water, and probably looked nothing like this bake & shark in it’s untouched state:

Today I was given two generous hollywoodesque fillets. It was shark on shadon beni on garlic sauce on tamarind sauce, on top of shark on shadon beni on garlic sauce on tamarind sauce - inside a fried bake. I essentially had created a sammich inside of a sammich.

The longest wait must’ve been getting around the condiment line, because I devoured that sammich in record time. I mean, I annihilated it beyond recognition of what must have come before in that royal castle looking box. 

In addition to the condiments I added were, lettuce, slaw, cucumber and thousand island. It laid out perfectly, and came together even more magically. Doesn’t this stuff just make you want to lick your computer or cellular device?

There’s no need for me to further explain this bliss. There are no more superlatives that’s already been covered in this Tumblr. It’s already been done. 

However, it was a burrday party beach brunch lime afterall, and thus, the ice-cream plans fell through, and were replaced by more food and drink of course. Why not? So first there was the obligatory visit to Zahir aka The Jean-Claude Van Damme of gyros on Arapita Avenue, before walking down to La Havanna for NO SHOWER HAPPY HOUR. Perfect ending made even more perfect by the Coco Lounge go-go dancers flexxing on top of the wall entertaining drivers-by and patrons of other establishments, right under the grace of the moonlight. It wouldn’t be Trinidad otherwise.

LOCATION: Fuddruckers - Reagan National Airport, Washington DC “how I long for the hamburger patch, when hamburgers grew on trees like fruits” - The Hamburglar  The last time I had been in DC, I was running with my tail between my legs to catch a flight, so this time I could put my feet up and enjoy a sammich. As soon as I walked out of the gate, I saw the two main contenders: Potbelly’s and Fuddruckers, neighbouring each other. The choice of sammich was much further apart than their proximities to each other. My Brethren, known as The Fellowship of The Four Second Pour, had sang incantations of love and made up mischievous little ditties about Potbelly’s. So, one day while I was cruising through Mt Laurel, it caught my peripheral vision, and I decided that I had to experience this sammich anomaly. What happened next was regrettable as I successfully relied on Jedi mindtricks to remove that embedded memory. Maybe it been rated up so much that it fell short of my expectations, because I was expecting magic on carbs. Never happened. It probably deserves a second chance, but given that Fuddruckers has even less of a presence in NYC & Trinidad than Chick-Fil-A, the choice my dear Watson, was elementary. First off FOH with that World’s Greatest Burgers claim. It’s good, but they gotta fallback - unless they specify in that very ambiguous statement in far less pragmatic terms. In the realm of hamburger satisfaction, it’s a few notches more upscale than your generic premium burgers from any fastfood chain.  But before I continue to bite the arm that fed me, I’ll admit that I thoroughly enjoyed their burger. I got their 1/2 pounder bacon cheddar burger. It came with seasoned wedge fries. SOLD! Their overall service and presentation for fastfood was somewhere between hamburger cute and politicial lobbyist stush. I mean, they even asked how I wanted it cooked. I never knew you had choices like that with fastfood. They even had the light up frisbee vibrating thingy for when your sammich was ready. Yeah, maybe a bit much for what could’ve potentially been a frozen beef patty, but I guess we’ll never know. I couldn’t tell if was really a frozen patty, but it was fresh enough. WEIRD, but I still ain’t mad. The lovely and most appreciated part of their service was the condiment bar. Of course that meant I wouldn’t have to unnecessarily scrape disgusting tomato and pickles off my sammich. This time though, I only went for a little ketchup and mayo, because I really wanted to taste this burger, and not have it ruined by too much extras. See? I learnt my lesson from Sketch Burger’s maître d’sammich. The bun it sat on was a butter toasted Puff n’Stuff burger bun with a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Okay, maybe not flown in daily from Puff n’Stuff, and about twice the size of their regular burger bun. It was toasted on the grill which gave it a greasy grilled cheese finish. All good stuff. It was topped with melted American chedda, and generously loaded with hickory bacon. It came together interestingly well, and outperformed my expectations. The bread was still soft with that buttery taste off the grill, the burger was cooked medium-well to my preferences, and was lean and juicy. It wasn’t the leaky-runny-juicy, but it seemed almost charbroiled to lock in the taste without creating an unnecessary mess for travel inconvenience. The bacon wasn’t just your regular fat riddled crispy bacon either. These were thicker cuts that allowed for a more authentic bacon flavour with a taste that didn’t run away from the burger. The generous portion also helped rectify the usual disproportionate ratio of bacon to beef on a bacon burger. For all my mockery, Fuddruckers got this sammich right, and hit the spot. They just don’t need to get too far ahead of themselves with the self-bestowed titled of World Best/ World Champion, when they haven’t even conquered all of America.

LOCATION: Fuddruckers - Reagan National Airport, Washington DC

“how I long for the hamburger patch, when hamburgers grew on trees like fruits” - The Hamburglar 

The last time I had been in DC, I was running with my tail between my legs to catch a flight, so this time I could put my feet up and enjoy a sammich. As soon as I walked out of the gate, I saw the two main contenders: Potbelly’s and Fuddruckers, neighbouring each other. The choice of sammich was much further apart than their proximities to each other.

My Brethren, known as The Fellowship of The Four Second Pour, had sang incantations of love and made up mischievous little ditties about Potbelly’s. So, one day while I was cruising through Mt Laurel, it caught my peripheral vision, and I decided that I had to experience this sammich anomaly. What happened next was regrettable as I successfully relied on Jedi mindtricks to remove that embedded memory. Maybe it been rated up so much that it fell short of my expectations, because I was expecting magic on carbs. Never happened. It probably deserves a second chance, but given that Fuddruckers has even less of a presence in NYC & Trinidad than Chick-Fil-A, the choice my dear Watson, was elementary.

First off FOH with that World’s Greatest Burgers claim. It’s good, but they gotta fallback - unless they specify in that very ambiguous statement in far less pragmatic terms. In the realm of hamburger satisfaction, it’s a few notches more upscale than your generic premium burgers from any fastfood chain. 

But before I continue to bite the arm that fed me, I’ll admit that I thoroughly enjoyed their burger. I got their 1/2 pounder bacon cheddar burger. It came with seasoned wedge fries. SOLD!

Their overall service and presentation for fastfood was somewhere between hamburger cute and politicial lobbyist stush. I mean, they even asked how I wanted it cooked. I never knew you had choices like that with fastfood. They even had the light up frisbee vibrating thingy for when your sammich was ready. Yeah, maybe a bit much for what could’ve potentially been a frozen beef patty, but I guess we’ll never know. I couldn’t tell if was really a frozen patty, but it was fresh enough. WEIRD, but I still ain’t mad.

The lovely and most appreciated part of their service was the condiment bar. Of course that meant I wouldn’t have to unnecessarily scrape disgusting tomato and pickles off my sammich. This time though, I only went for a little ketchup and mayo, because I really wanted to taste this burger, and not have it ruined by too much extras. See? I learnt my lesson from Sketch Burger’s maître d’sammich.

The bun it sat on was a butter toasted Puff n’Stuff burger bun with a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Okay, maybe not flown in daily from Puff n’Stuff, and about twice the size of their regular burger bun. It was toasted on the grill which gave it a greasy grilled cheese finish. All good stuff.

It was topped with melted American chedda, and generously loaded with hickory bacon. It came together interestingly well, and outperformed my expectations. The bread was still soft with that buttery taste off the grill, the burger was cooked medium-well to my preferences, and was lean and juicy. It wasn’t the leaky-runny-juicy, but it seemed almost charbroiled to lock in the taste without creating an unnecessary mess for travel inconvenience. The bacon wasn’t just your regular fat riddled crispy bacon either. These were thicker cuts that allowed for a more authentic bacon flavour with a taste that didn’t run away from the burger. The generous portion also helped rectify the usual disproportionate ratio of bacon to beef on a bacon burger.

For all my mockery, Fuddruckers got this sammich right, and hit the spot. They just don’t need to get too far ahead of themselves with the self-bestowed titled of World Best/ World Champion, when they haven’t even conquered all of America.

LOCATION: No. 7 Sub - Midtown, NYC “Sure you don’t want a burger?” asked the hipster chick with the lip ring, then proceeded to tell me about Bare Burger in my old neighbourhood. I remembered then, never underestimate a hipster’s sammich knowledge. Wondering how that fit into this huh? Well chalk it up to my ever faithful burger tshirt. It never fails with the ladies. Well I had to find some way to entertain myself, and it was quite a wait, so I got a headstart on my observations. Afterall, it was hipster sammiches and Hungover Model Appreciation Day after the previous night’s FNO spectacle - and Bush’s Machinehead was playing. On this day in particular the dresscode for the patrons was predominantly Urban Outfitters x Anthropologie x All Saints x various Goodwill stores. Of course there was also the mandatory tattoo, and a choice between backward fitted MLB hat or Fedora, as to complete the ensemble and not experience FOMO. The other patrons that crammed Sub No. 7 covered a wide spectrum. There was a group which seemed like 300 suits and ties decked in casual Friday khakis. Then the cd changed and hiphop came on. The Azn chick, in her attempt to stay relevant decided to prove the stereotype right, in that Azn’s can’t dance. This quickly turned into the daytime version of Park or Hiro. Then there was the au naturel lesbo chick named Leslie, in the sleveless shortdress with the razor allergy, but somehow ended up with a zugged-up mullet, yet still managed hairy legs & armpits. Damn, this is a food blog - OH WELL. I wasn’t really stalking her, but I found out her name when they called it out for her sammich. I wonder if she changed her name to Leslie, or if it’s an alias? About the name calling things. I could swear they were calling the names of all of Sarah Palin’s kids or grandmas. Everyone was a Cooper or Mabel. It felt so … Americana.  But back to the sammich that we were here for (I say “we” like if I’m pregnant or something) - so, back to the sammich that I was here for. Since on my last visit I was disappointed by the lack of brisket, I returned with a vengance - Brisket or Broke. Their redesigned brisket sammich is beef brisket, chinese mustard and pickled mushrooms. I smiled when I saw it, because they had just put together 3 of my favourite things. MEAT, MUSTARD and MUSHROOMS. I’m a carnivore hands down, I’m renowned for my famous mustard and toast sammich, and I can open a can of mushrooms and finish it before it ever gets to the pizza.  On this day, I decided to take my sammich and have it at Madison Square Park. More on that debacle later. The bread was toasted, and the mustard seemed to be somewhere in the range of spicy to regular prepared mustard. Their brisket was their usual high quality flawless standard. Melt in your mouth beef brisket. Even though I’m not always a fan of toasted hero bread, just because the crust breaks up with you bite it - and if it’s overly toasted, is tough enough to create an unpleasant and uncomfortable eating experience, this bread was toasted properly. Just long enough, so that it held up well when the juices from the brisket started to soak in. It never got soggy, and that was in part to the generous coating of chinese mustard and some sneaky infused mayo - because it sure didn’t taste like regular mayo. It was quite satisfactory against the backdrop of chicks holding on to the last remaining bits of summer by sunbathing in their purposefully mismatched bikinis for colour-blocking effect, as well Real Estate dudes trying their best to outcon each other by holding their meetings on the park benches usually laid out for Shake Shack, but occupying the northern end of the MSP to accomodate the viewing of the US Open. I never knew that you could drink in MSP, but it seemed like it was okay to consume the alcohol they were serving in open containers if you were watching The Open from the bleachers and you were an AMEX cardholder. It gave off the vibe as a stush cooler fete for city mums and their babies. You gotta love the randomness of Sub No.7 - you go in there expecting something, only to experience something better, if not more entertaining - it just depends on perspective.

LOCATION: No. 7 Sub - Midtown, NYC

“Sure you don’t want a burger?” asked the hipster chick with the lip ring, then proceeded to tell me about Bare Burger in my old neighbourhood. I remembered then, never underestimate a hipster’s sammich knowledge. Wondering how that fit into this huh? Well chalk it up to my ever faithful burger tshirt. It never fails with the ladies.

Well I had to find some way to entertain myself, and it was quite a wait, so I got a headstart on my observations. Afterall, it was hipster sammiches and Hungover Model Appreciation Day after the previous night’s FNO spectacle - and Bush’s Machinehead was playing.

On this day in particular the dresscode for the patrons was predominantly Urban Outfitters x Anthropologie x All Saints x various Goodwill stores. Of course there was also the mandatory tattoo, and a choice between backward fitted MLB hat or Fedora, as to complete the ensemble and not experience FOMO.

The other patrons that crammed Sub No. 7 covered a wide spectrum. There was a group which seemed like 300 suits and ties decked in casual Friday khakis. Then the cd changed and hiphop came on. The Azn chick, in her attempt to stay relevant decided to prove the stereotype right, in that Azn’s can’t dance. This quickly turned into the daytime version of Park or Hiro. Then there was the au naturel lesbo chick named Leslie, in the sleveless shortdress with the razor allergy, but somehow ended up with a zugged-up mullet, yet still managed hairy legs & armpits. Damn, this is a food blog - OH WELL. I wasn’t really stalking her, but I found out her name when they called it out for her sammich. I wonder if she changed her name to Leslie, or if it’s an alias?

About the name calling things. I could swear they were calling the names of all of Sarah Palin’s kids or grandmas. Everyone was a Cooper or Mabel. It felt so … Americana. 

But back to the sammich that we were here for (I say “we” like if I’m pregnant or something) - so, back to the sammich that I was here for. Since on my last visit I was disappointed by the lack of brisket, I returned with a vengance - Brisket or Broke. Their redesigned brisket sammich is beef brisket, chinese mustard and pickled mushrooms. I smiled when I saw it, because they had just put together 3 of my favourite things. MEAT, MUSTARD and MUSHROOMS. I’m a carnivore hands down, I’m renowned for my famous mustard and toast sammich, and I can open a can of mushrooms and finish it before it ever gets to the pizza. 

On this day, I decided to take my sammich and have it at Madison Square Park. More on that debacle later. The bread was toasted, and the mustard seemed to be somewhere in the range of spicy to regular prepared mustard. Their brisket was their usual high quality flawless standard. Melt in your mouth beef brisket. Even though I’m not always a fan of toasted hero bread, just because the crust breaks up with you bite it - and if it’s overly toasted, is tough enough to create an unpleasant and uncomfortable eating experience, this bread was toasted properly. Just long enough, so that it held up well when the juices from the brisket started to soak in. It never got soggy, and that was in part to the generous coating of chinese mustard and some sneaky infused mayo - because it sure didn’t taste like regular mayo.

It was quite satisfactory against the backdrop of chicks holding on to the last remaining bits of summer by sunbathing in their purposefully mismatched bikinis for colour-blocking effect, as well Real Estate dudes trying their best to outcon each other by holding their meetings on the park benches usually laid out for Shake Shack, but occupying the northern end of the MSP to accomodate the viewing of the US Open.

I never knew that you could drink in MSP, but it seemed like it was okay to consume the alcohol they were serving in open containers if you were watching The Open from the bleachers and you were an AMEX cardholder. It gave off the vibe as a stush cooler fete for city mums and their babies.

You gotta love the randomness of Sub No.7 - you go in there expecting something, only to experience something better, if not more entertaining - it just depends on perspective.

LOCATION: KFC - Village of Stoney Run, Maple Shade, NJ “I don’t care if the chicken’s real, as long as the bacon is legit. Fire bun out the CHI CHIcken” - Karl Lagerfeld I apologize ahead of time if my character assumes full on Trini vernacular for this tumble, but KFC just so happens to bring out the Trini in me. My parlance reflects the embedding of KFC culture into the Trini psyche. An indoctrination of sorts, of the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs and spices ingrated into the soul of a Trini. A Trini walking into a KFC in America (or KGC as they’ve rebranded it these days) is heresy. Since they’ve decided to go by the acronym instead of Kentucky Fried Chicken, it’s difficult to say whether or not you’re even eating chicken here. But for the benefit of the doubt, it tastes like chicken - so it’s chicken. Now, if they mess around with the bacon, and I find out that the bacon really isn’t bacon, I promise that all hell will break loose. A man doesn’t bring home the bacon for no reason, so don’t ever mess with a man’s bacon. First off, the main reason why US KFC’s suck is because the kernel gets his blends wrong, the chicken isn’t fresh enough, properly seasoned, or thoroughly cooked. This ain’t steak, and there’s no reason why your chicken should be medium rare. Chicken should always be well done, unless you want some salmonella crawling up your backside. Eating KFC in The US is like eating Popeye’s in Trinidad - it tastes like pure shit. That being said, and coming from a KFC country that has an outlet that sells the most pieces of chicken in the world, it’s a surprise that The Doubledown has never made it to the sun kissed shores of Trinidad & Tobago. We’ve always embraced KFC chicken sammiches warmly though - from the Zinger Outta Texas, to the much maligned Cruncher, and even The Snackers. That Trinidad hasn’t been seen as noteworthy of having the Doubledown is confusing, but also indicative of a larger issue: that no matter what, and whatever price Prestige Holdings Limited Board of Directors ratifies for a price increase of a Snackbox, Trinis will line up, screw their pan and put up with poor customer service and gladly pay for their box of dead, and smile when they get it - once they get a center breast. I have no idea what is Trinis obsession with center breasts, but by golly, the ones who always demand the biggest pieces of chicken MUST have a center breast. I had my birthday at KFC back in the late 80s, and even KFC JoJo showed up. Yeah, there was a time when that was cool, alongside fluorescent wristbands, tight shorts and British Knights. All the JoJo dollars in the world couldn’t land some of you that photo opportunity, but such is the life of a celebrat.  The KFC that I found this sammich was somewhere in the irrelevant section that joins the New Jersey Turnpike to Philadelphia. It goes by a whole slew of names, but it reminds me exactly of Trinidad. It was the same shitty service. I waited for 5 minutes with no-one at the counter, before someone peeped out from the back - and get this - ignored me and went back to finishing up their personal conversation. After he figured that I wasn’t going anywhere soon, he decided to come out, give some half assed apology and take my order. I tried to hold back on the stink eye and underbreath whispers of HYMC, because I didn’t want spit to be the “secret sauce” in my sammich. The only good thing about this KFC was that it came with an adjoining Taco Hell, but that’s not the great thing. The great thing is that it came with a free-refills soda machine - the kind of stush stuff you only find in the burbs. Now I had initially been intimidated by this sammich, due to the reputation that had preceeded it. There was no way that two pieces of fried chicken, two pieces of bacon and cheese could be good for you - and I just wanted to live long enough to try more sammiches. However, this had to be done, for all of Trinidadian humanity, and once my trainer had given me the green light by saying that it’s only protein, I had all the encouragement I needed. First off, the chicken fillets are juicy. Wanna know something else? IT’S CENTRE BRESSS!!!! It was the first time I’ve ever seen centre breast served in a fried chicken joint in America. A centre breast for you n00bs isn’t the regular bone-in chicken breast - it’s a complete boneless breast of chicken. Without the bone it’s harder to undercook, and almost foolproof when it comes to overbreading - two notorious poor qualities of US KFC. This was perfectly seasoned, breaded and cooked. It made for juicy, tender pieces of chicken. The two breasts sandwiched the bacon, cheese and sauce - as advertised. The bacon seemed legit, prepackaged, fat riddled, crispy, perfect bacon woohoo bacon. The pepper jack chedda was just about starting to melt from the natural heat from the hot chicken, and the sauce - well there’s not too much of a secret about it, because they should just come out and admit that it’s chipotle sauce. The sammich came together very well, and it didn’t turn out to be as intimidating as I had calculated. I can only assume that this would do well in Trinidad - even though I could see Trinis kicking up about pepper jack, and demanding Trinidad (New Zealand) chedda.  But yeah, 2 centre bresss + 2 strips of bacon. Strength and powers. One is One. Your argument is invalid.

LOCATION: KFC - Village of Stoney Run, Maple Shade, NJ

“I don’t care if the chicken’s real, as long as the bacon is legit. Fire bun out the CHI CHIcken” - Karl Lagerfeld

I apologize ahead of time if my character assumes full on Trini vernacular for this tumble, but KFC just so happens to bring out the Trini in me. My parlance reflects the embedding of KFC culture into the Trini psyche. An indoctrination of sorts, of the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs and spices ingrated into the soul of a Trini.

A Trini walking into a KFC in America (or KGC as they’ve rebranded it these days) is heresy. Since they’ve decided to go by the acronym instead of Kentucky Fried Chicken, it’s difficult to say whether or not you’re even eating chicken here. But for the benefit of the doubt, it tastes like chicken - so it’s chicken. Now, if they mess around with the bacon, and I find out that the bacon really isn’t bacon, I promise that all hell will break loose. A man doesn’t bring home the bacon for no reason, so don’t ever mess with a man’s bacon.

First off, the main reason why US KFC’s suck is because the kernel gets his blends wrong, the chicken isn’t fresh enough, properly seasoned, or thoroughly cooked. This ain’t steak, and there’s no reason why your chicken should be medium rare. Chicken should always be well done, unless you want some salmonella crawling up your backside. Eating KFC in The US is like eating Popeye’s in Trinidad - it tastes like pure shit. That being said, and coming from a KFC country that has an outlet that sells the most pieces of chicken in the world, it’s a surprise that The Doubledown has never made it to the sun kissed shores of Trinidad & Tobago. We’ve always embraced KFC chicken sammiches warmly though - from the Zinger Outta Texas, to the much maligned Cruncher, and even The Snackers. That Trinidad hasn’t been seen as noteworthy of having the Doubledown is confusing, but also indicative of a larger issue: that no matter what, and whatever price Prestige Holdings Limited Board of Directors ratifies for a price increase of a Snackbox, Trinis will line up, screw their pan and put up with poor customer service and gladly pay for their box of dead, and smile when they get it - once they get a center breast. I have no idea what is Trinis obsession with center breasts, but by golly, the ones who always demand the biggest pieces of chicken MUST have a center breast.

I had my birthday at KFC back in the late 80s, and even KFC JoJo showed up. Yeah, there was a time when that was cool, alongside fluorescent wristbands, tight shorts and British Knights. All the JoJo dollars in the world couldn’t land some of you that photo opportunity, but such is the life of a celebrat. 

The KFC that I found this sammich was somewhere in the irrelevant section that joins the New Jersey Turnpike to Philadelphia. It goes by a whole slew of names, but it reminds me exactly of Trinidad. It was the same shitty service. I waited for 5 minutes with no-one at the counter, before someone peeped out from the back - and get this - ignored me and went back to finishing up their personal conversation. After he figured that I wasn’t going anywhere soon, he decided to come out, give some half assed apology and take my order. I tried to hold back on the stink eye and underbreath whispers of HYMC, because I didn’t want spit to be the “secret sauce” in my sammich. The only good thing about this KFC was that it came with an adjoining Taco Hell, but that’s not the great thing. The great thing is that it came with a free-refills soda machine - the kind of stush stuff you only find in the burbs.

Now I had initially been intimidated by this sammich, due to the reputation that had preceeded it. There was no way that two pieces of fried chicken, two pieces of bacon and cheese could be good for you - and I just wanted to live long enough to try more sammiches. However, this had to be done, for all of Trinidadian humanity, and once my trainer had given me the green light by saying that it’s only protein, I had all the encouragement I needed.

First off, the chicken fillets are juicy. Wanna know something else? IT’S CENTRE BRESSS!!!! It was the first time I’ve ever seen centre breast served in a fried chicken joint in America. A centre breast for you n00bs isn’t the regular bone-in chicken breast - it’s a complete boneless breast of chicken. Without the bone it’s harder to undercook, and almost foolproof when it comes to overbreading - two notorious poor qualities of US KFC. This was perfectly seasoned, breaded and cooked. It made for juicy, tender pieces of chicken.

The two breasts sandwiched the bacon, cheese and sauce - as advertised. The bacon seemed legit, prepackaged, fat riddled, crispy, perfect bacon woohoo bacon. The pepper jack chedda was just about starting to melt from the natural heat from the hot chicken, and the sauce - well there’s not too much of a secret about it, because they should just come out and admit that it’s chipotle sauce.

The sammich came together very well, and it didn’t turn out to be as intimidating as I had calculated. I can only assume that this would do well in Trinidad - even though I could see Trinis kicking up about pepper jack, and demanding Trinidad (New Zealand) chedda. 

But yeah, 2 centre bresss + 2 strips of bacon. Strength and powers. One is One. Your argument is invalid.

LOCATION: Kitchen Countertop - Home “Why did Thanksgiving have to give turkeys such a bad name?” - Geronimo, The Last of The Mohicans. One of the most manly things you can do, is to hunt for your own food. Being able to find sustenance in your territory, or conquer that of another, has been inherent to preserving humanity since the days of Adam and Eve, but in this case we’re not eating the forbidden fruit - TOMATO. On this day in particular, I decided to graze through the fridge and pantry to see what I could concoct. Mind you, I didn’t have much options, because Whoricane Irene was raging, power was out - or as we like to say CURRENT GONE, and I only had a small window of time to come up with a meal that didn’t include using the oven. Thus, I gathered some items from the fridge and freezer and got to inventing. There was no ground beef, but there was ground turkey. The initial plan of a Shepherd’s Pie was squashed, and thus Plan B Meatballs were initiated. Salt, white pepper, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, italian seasoning and Adobe poultry seasoning were added. The breadcrumbs were a mix of italian seasoning bread crumbs and grounded up CheezIt and Garlic & Herb table water crackers. Oh yeah, and a couple eggs got into it. When all of this was hand mixed and the seasonings were well folded into the meat, I started making the meatballs of approximately two inch diameters. Once done, I stuffed them with Buffalo Hot Wing Sauce Cheddar from Wholefoods on Bowery & Houston. This cheese is nuts. First off you have to overcome the reality that some madman decided to put habanero hot wing sauce in cheese, and make it legal for sale. Then you have to overcome that some brave souls are willing to go in on this. When I was initially introduced to it by a fellow cheese fanatic, I thought it was insane - but once I had it, it’s kinda hard to live down. The meatballs were browned in a mix of vegetable oil and peanut oil. They were left in a little longer than usual because there was no option to let them further cook in the oven. Once cooked on all sides, a medium thickish Marinara Sauce was poured into the skillet, and the meatballs were allowed to simmer for a few more minutes. One of the best things about NY is that the bodegas/delis always have a fresh supply of bread, hurricane or no hurricane. A plain regular hero sub, not too soft on the inside, and not hard on the outside was perfect for this sammich. Into the sub, went the meatballs. They were then sauced up, with just enough space between the meatballs for the sauce the leak into the bread.  When you think you’ve had enough cheese, then some freshly grated parmigiano reggiano goes on top and a dash of italian seasoning tops that off.   For years, there’s been the great debate of whether or not Wawa or Subway has the best meatball sub on the market, but once you’re done with this, there leaves no doubt as to which meatball sammich has the most swag.   Each bite on this sammich is a little more joyful because it’s homemade, and more importantly, it actually tastes good. The bread is nice and soft, and soaks up just enough of the marinara. You take a bite, and the as you cut through the parmigiana, it mixes with the marinara until you hit the turkey meatballs. Turkey, which traditionally has a bad name from Thanksgiving, gets a pass here. It’s well seasoned, and when you cut through and hit that melted Buffalo hot wing sauce cheese with habanero, it gives a good little creamy kick. It pretty much becomes like spicy cheez wizz in the middle. It’s not too overwhelming, because you’re here for the meatballs, not the cheese. The cheese is just a nice little surprise that you’re privy to. Then, by the time you’re done - and current eh come back yet - you’re back to square one, but atleast with some fuel in the tank. 

LOCATION: Kitchen Countertop - Home

“Why did Thanksgiving have to give turkeys such a bad name?” - Geronimo, The Last of The Mohicans.

One of the most manly things you can do, is to hunt for your own food. Being able to find sustenance in your territory, or conquer that of another, has been inherent to preserving humanity since the days of Adam and Eve, but in this case we’re not eating the forbidden fruit - TOMATO.

On this day in particular, I decided to graze through the fridge and pantry to see what I could concoct. Mind you, I didn’t have much options, because Whoricane Irene was raging, power was out - or as we like to say CURRENT GONE, and I only had a small window of time to come up with a meal that didn’t include using the oven. Thus, I gathered some items from the fridge and freezer and got to inventing.

There was no ground beef, but there was ground turkey. The initial plan of a Shepherd’s Pie was squashed, and thus Plan B Meatballs were initiated. Salt, white pepper, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, italian seasoning and Adobe poultry seasoning were added. The breadcrumbs were a mix of italian seasoning bread crumbs and grounded up CheezIt and Garlic & Herb table water crackers. Oh yeah, and a couple eggs got into it.

When all of this was hand mixed and the seasonings were well folded into the meat, I started making the meatballs of approximately two inch diameters. Once done, I stuffed them with Buffalo Hot Wing Sauce Cheddar from Wholefoods on Bowery & Houston. This cheese is nuts. First off you have to overcome the reality that some madman decided to put habanero hot wing sauce in cheese, and make it legal for sale. Then you have to overcome that some brave souls are willing to go in on this.

When I was initially introduced to it by a fellow cheese fanatic, I thought it was insane - but once I had it, it’s kinda hard to live down. The meatballs were browned in a mix of vegetable oil and peanut oil. They were left in a little longer than usual because there was no option to let them further cook in the oven. Once cooked on all sides, a medium thickish Marinara Sauce was poured into the skillet, and the meatballs were allowed to simmer for a few more minutes.

One of the best things about NY is that the bodegas/delis always have a fresh supply of bread, hurricane or no hurricane. A plain regular hero sub, not too soft on the inside, and not hard on the outside was perfect for this sammich. Into the sub, went the meatballs. They were then sauced up, with just enough space between the meatballs for the sauce the leak into the bread. 

When you think you’ve had enough cheese, then some freshly grated parmigiano reggiano goes on top and a dash of italian seasoning tops that off.  

For years, there’s been the great debate of whether or not Wawa or Subway has the best meatball sub on the market, but once you’re done with this, there leaves no doubt as to which meatball sammich has the most swag.  

Each bite on this sammich is a little more joyful because it’s homemade, and more importantly, it actually tastes good. The bread is nice and soft, and soaks up just enough of the marinara. You take a bite, and the as you cut through the parmigiana, it mixes with the marinara until you hit the turkey meatballs. Turkey, which traditionally has a bad name from Thanksgiving, gets a pass here. It’s well seasoned, and when you cut through and hit that melted Buffalo hot wing sauce cheese with habanero, it gives a good little creamy kick. It pretty much becomes like spicy cheez wizz in the middle. It’s not too overwhelming, because you’re here for the meatballs, not the cheese. The cheese is just a nice little surprise that you’re privy to.

Then, by the time you’re done - and current eh come back yet - you’re back to square one, but atleast with some fuel in the tank.