Hash House a Go Go

For our last clinical day we decided to treat our instructor out for lunch. After endless days of deliberating and many a sleepless night agonizing over where to go, we finally decided on a place: Hash House a Go Go.

So last Friday, after deciding on a time and getting rough directions, I proceeded to ... hitch a ride with a friend. I'm somewhat infamous for being directionally-challenged so it was probably good I carpooled. I'd have been so lost... and amusingly enough, we were.

My friend and I were given a set of directions. Okay, easy enough. When we got to the intersection we saw this non-descript restaurant called Hash House. Looked like a morning breakfast place - had pictures of omelettes, potato hash, pancakes, etc. Seemed like the right place... yet nobody was there. My friend called another member of our group and was told that they were at the meeting place. Apparently, we ended up at another place that served similar food with a reaaaally similar name. The place we were supposed to meet at was a couple of blocks down. What are the chances?

After driving yet again and arriving at the correct place with the correct name, we proceeded to sit down and order food. They had a relatively varied menu and as the waitress explained (one of my friends asked), it's not quite the normal food - it's their take on it. For example, their "Famous One Pound Stuffed Burger" consisted of two patties stuffed with a variety of different things. The one I ordered had fresh mushrooms and swiss cheese. Another friend ordered the same burger but with apple smoked bacon and mashed potatoes inside. The rest of my friends ordered a griddled meatloaf sandwich ("The Kokomo") and a "Hash House Farm Benedict." Our instructor and I ordered the same thing.

We waited quite a bit, the passage of time aided by the amusement we derived from our instructor's son. He was 4 and quite a handful - his toy airplane somehow crashed into my glass of lemonade. We had fun though, from toppling the stacked empty juice boxes he brought to him giving his toys all a wash with his own little cup of lemonade (which wasn't so yellow near the end of our meal).

At last our meals arrived. And... boy, was it a feast.

A whopping gargantuan burger. I had no doubts it was one pound - heck, it was probably heavier than that. The whole thing was big - it came in on a huge plate (with a side of fries, of course) with a freaking knife stabbed down the middle.

I tried picking it up and eating it like that... to no avail. I suppose that's why the knife was there, huh? So I ended up resorting to slicing the darn thing in half.

Hash house farm benedict and close up | The Kokomo

The food was good. And relatively cheap, given the taste and size of the portions. The meat was juicy and flavorful, and the filling was, in a word, filling. Hmm... maybe I should've traded in half of mine for the other half of my friend's as she ordered the same thing just with different innards. I believe as time wore on I ended up being the only one finishing my meal, the rest of my comrades had to take theirs home. I even got a small cheer from my group when they noticed I had but a small handful remaining (a few cheers here and there... and mostly stares and gaping mouths).

A whole buncha nurses eating plaque-forming, artery-clogging goodness. Anything wrong with the picture? No? Yeah, I didn't think so either. This place definitely warrants another visit.

- West

Red Lobster

Last Friday my family and I went to Red Lobster, a seafood restaurant, for lunch. It's Lent and we decided we were tired of ye olde Long John Silver's. Anyway, we hadn't been there in quite a while so... when else would the perfect day be if not now when you can't eat meat?

We got complimentary biscuits to start our meal. For appetizers, we got a sampler dish with stuffed mushrooms and grilled scallops and a plate of calamari rings and vegetables. Also, some of our meals came with salad. Mine was Caesar.

Two lobster tails, garlic shrimp scampi, and grilled shrimp served with wild rice.

Shrimp, scallops, clam strips, and fried sole.

What I got: split lobster tail, grilled salmon topped with lobster meat in a butter sauce. Served with wild rice.

All the grilled portions of our meals were absolutely delicious, especially the scallops and salmon. You can definitely taste the grill-age of the food and not just see the grill marks. Now I remember why I like Red Lobster.

The seafood is good.

- West

BJ's

Last Tuesday, mein family and I visited a new branch of a restaurant that had newly opened near us. We've been to this restaurant, named BJ's, before but it was a different branch located quite a long ways off from our place. Knowing that a new one had opened up a day or so ago, we didn't wait long before we began our invasion.

This one was similar in decor indoors and out, which I assume would make sense - why would they make the same name of restaurant with different themes and decorations serving the same food, right?

It was only their second day of opening and yet they were already pretty filled up. Our time of arrival was most fortunate - after we had sat down and ordered more people steadily trickled into the restaurant. We commented about the busy-ness of the place to our server who seemed quite surprised by the whole thing as well. We all wondered what kind of marketing they had... didn't seem to recall if there were TV ads, print ads, flyers, etc. I guess just having big signs outside the place was enough to promote the place?

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Or maybe it was the food.

We ordered a half a baked potato (which came with soup - New England clam chowder) for my grandmother. My cousin got a small deep dish pepperoni pizza while my other cousin got a Chili Cheese Angus Burger. My other aunt and I both ordered their spicy Jambalaya (which I was no stranger to) with a side of rolls. As for beverages we got soda, lemonade, and strawberry lemonade.

The baked potato was quite huge. It had chicken and broccoli topped with molten cheese.

The pizza, while small, was pretty hefty in itself. The burger looked like a yummy heart attack waiting to happen, served with potato wedges on the side. The jambalaya had chicken and sausage and pretty spicy.

The lemonade's rim was coated with sugar for that extra "mmm~"

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Yeah, it was definitely the food.

We also had the dessert in mind when we came here. Oh yes... definitely the dessert. Simply called a "Pizookie" and according to their website is a "freshly baked, hot out of the oven, rich and delicious cookie topped with two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream and served in its own deep dish. Your choice of chocolate chunk, white chocolate macadamia nut, peanut butter or oatmeal raisin walnut." We picked macadamia nut.

Yes, you are drooling.

Prices are pretty good considering the food, which is a bit above-average for your normal run-of-the-mill poor college student like moi. Definitely worth a revisit, if only for the dessert (definitely for the dessert!). Here's their website if you're interested: BJ's Restaurants.

- West

Oh, and by the way: