Overrated – The following foods …

Ned Bitters

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … these foods.

Hell no I’m not going to do something election-related. After two years of non-stop election chatter, can dufus Ned Bitters have any original insight to offer? I just googled the exact phrase “John McCain is a douche” and got 91 exact matches. So I’m out of ideas.

Instead of trying to play the foulmouthed pundit, I’ll just bitch about certain foods that are overrated. This is not going to be a list of foods that I don’t like. That would be stupid, even for me. I eat or have eaten all the foods on this list. All of them are pretty good. They just don’t deserve their lofty status on the Yummy Chain.

Extra Cheese on Pizza: I worked at a pizza joint on and off for seven years when I was in college. Every big-haired ditz of a chick that came into that restaurant wanted extra cheese on her pie. (Write your own joke here … too easy.) Extra cheese keeps the dough from cooking properly, compromises the intensity of the other flavors and has the potential to choke a hyena, let alone some drunk Pittsburgh skank. Yet for some reason, every chick had to have it. Unfortunately, I never got to do the Heimlich Maneuver on some gasping-for-air piece of ass with a glob of cheese stuck in her gullet. That would have been sexy.

Fried Chicken: Hey, who doesn’t like fried chicken? But fried chicken is only fried chicken if you can eat the skin, and who this side of Paula Dean doesn’t know that the skin will kill you faster than a white Texas jury staring at a neegra defendant. You get hold of a delectable fried chicken leg, and the first thing you do is remove, through tears of bitter regret, that tasty cholesterol wrap called the skin and begin chomping on what is now just another piece of chicken.

Chinese Food: I likes me some Chinese food, but it all tastes the same. The kung pao tastes like the orange chicken which tastes like the General Tso’s which taste like the other 137 items on the interminable menu. This holds true with every Chinese restaurant. The food at the Great Wall where I live tastes exactly like the brown gooey mess at the Peking Gardens where you live or the Szechuan Palace where your brother lives. The restaurant names are the same, the foods are the same and the tiny little used-to-be-kind-of-hot hostess lady with the cute accent is also the same.

Veal: I order veal all the time, and after I eat it I always wonder what the hell I was thinking when I ordered it. Veal is baby steak. Have the goddamn grownup steak. It tastes better and comes with less guilt. You want veal parmgiana? Try it with chicken, it tastes better. Veal picatta? Try it with a turkey cutlet, it tastes better. Veal marsala? What, are you fucking crazy? No mushroom should ever touch a piece of meat, let alone your tongue.

Oysters on the Half Shell: No, I’m not too big of a pussy to slurp down some raw oysters. I’ll sometimes share a few of the wife’s, who’s a big fan of the slimy slurpees. But raw oysters smack of pretension. They have very little flavor because they are swallowed rather than chewed, because chewing one is like gnawing on a patella tendon. So, to mask the lack of flavor, you douse them in horseradish sauce and cocktail sauce and lemon. By the time you’re done loading on the bottled flavor, you have no hope of tasting the actual oyster. Plus you risk violent vomiting and six hours in the E.R. just so you can say you ate raw oysters. Congratulations. Now go replenish the two rolls of toilet paper you used, you reeking diarrhea machine.

All You Can Eat Fries at Red Robin (“Yummmmm!”): What a great gimmick to trick fat Americans into thinking the 10 dollar shitburger they just ate is a real bargain. Yah … free fries! Does anyone over the age of 25 really order more fries just because you can? The second order doesn’t taste nearly as good, and you’re still not getting your money’s worth, as those 12 extra fries cost Red Robin (“Yummmmm!”) less than 12 cents. (But damn, I do love their commercials. “Yummmm!”)

Cheese on a Burger: Yes, another cheese entry. Can you really taste the cheese on that hamburger you’re shoving down your piehole as if the Hamburgler is hot on your tail? Even a cheese as strong as swiss doesn’t enhance the taste of a burger, especially since most greedy Americans feel compelled to top it with every option on the menu. After you add ketchup, mayo, lettuce, onions, jalapeno’s and bacon to your death patty, can you even taste that thin sheet of sharp cheddar? No.

Popcorn: Have you ever felt good after eating popcorn? Of course you haven’t. You just sucked down animal feed infused with air, topped with salt and, in your case you fat fuck, soaked in butter. My problem with popcorn stems not from the taste as much as from the way it ruins movies. I despise the popcorn movie entrance, the one where wide-eyed bozos enter the theater with the 10-gallon corn bucket, tonguing pieces off the top like a hungry frog. The styrofoam chewing sound of the behemoth behind me rips into my brain. Theater popcorn smells like a summer tennis shoe. Worst of all, when your date whispers to you during the movie, you wonder if an elephant snuck in during the previews and shit in her mouth.

Atomic-Suicide-Hell-Armageddon Hot Sauces: I love hot sauce. I eat it on wings, eggs, certain sandwiches and on Mrs. Bitters’ toes on Kink Night. But these people who pretend to like the ultimate tongue scalders on ribs and wings are just showing off. These ultra-hot sauces add no flavor. They kill flavor. All joy is removed from the eating experience. Skin stalactites hanging from the roof of the mouth should not be part of one’s dining experience.

Lobster: Somehow, lobster has been sold to a duped public as fancy food. It’s not fancy. It’s a semi-flavorless shellfish that only tastes good when doused with butter, or stirred into a nice warm bisque, or tossed in with some garlic pasta. Even then, all you really taste is the butter or the garlic.

And there you have it, an entire Election Day column devoid of any political talk or jokes. You know, like the one that goes, “What’s the difference between Sarah Palin’s mouth and her vagina? Only some of the things that come out of her vagina are retarded.”

Now go vote, asswipes. (Just not for the old white dude and his dimwitted running mate.)

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Comments (1)
  1. Joel November 4, 2008

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