IEM Session #16.5

Inhuman Eating Machine official rules and guidelines

(Continued from 16.4)

Eating Day: March 19, 2011, of course

SMART ALEC'S INTELLIGENT FOOD- 2355 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, 1:55pm- Superior Chef Salad - $6.95


Photos by Tigerlily

This was the salad stop I was dreading. If anything was going to break me on this session, it would be the salad here. Their entry is almost identical to the salad just up the street at Cafe Intermezzo, but Smart Alec's offers more dressing choices, more protein add-in options, and wheat berries as a default salad topping. Smart Alec's also offers some kind of freebie to students that bring in a good report card. Alec's is not a chain, as far as I can tell, but it somehow has a very chain-y feel to it. This is probably due to the pro-looking wall menu and their emphasis on their air-cooked fries, which seem like the domain of an enterprising multinational bent on capturing students seeking healthy dining options. Unlike Intermezzo, which has a very Berkeley-looking staff that undoubtedly smells of cumin, the counter girls at Smart Alec's always look they could have been extras in an Avril Lavigne video. While the hippies at Intermezzo actually make the salads, Smart Alec's food is prepared by Spanish-speakers in the back (like at almost every other restaurant in the Bay Area.) It is strange that two establishments that truck in identical food offerings (sandwiches and massive salads) can have such completely different "vibes," even though they are only two blocks apart.

Other than wheat berries, the Smart Alec's Superior Chef salad contains romaine, corn niblets, tomato slices, carrot coins, edamame, alfalfa sprouts (aka "the splooge of the plant kingdom"), an entire hardboiled egg, half an avocado, garbanzo beans, and croutons. Plus, you get your choice of protein from a list that includes grilled chicken, roast turkey, sliced turkey, hummus, a veggie burger, baked tofu, and a hamburger patty. I opted for the burger, as it seemed charred beef might counteract the roughage's imminent digestive "corollaries." The patty was easily a quarter pounder. Although it was overcooked for my tastes, it was relentlessly juicy and flavorful. I considered it a great addition.

It is hard to tell from the photo, but the salad here is absolutely behemoth. The thing weighs well over 2lbs, possibly 3lbs. Most sane people will make three or more meals out of this concoction. In the Mountain or Central time zone, where cole slaw is considered a health food, the Superior Chef would be enough salad to feed an entire family reunion at a rented picnic area in a city park. While the ingredients of Alec's salad are not up to the organic, seasonal, locally-grown, heirloom pedigree of some of the salads I ate earlier in the day, there is no denying that the Superior Chef is a great buy. Compared to a salad you'd receive at a steak house in the Midwest, it is absolutely a masterwork of modern greenery construction. The multitude of textures belies the fact that you are "just eating a salad." It is beyond comprehension that this salad is thrice the size of some I ate on this session, while ringing up as the least expensive offering of the journey. I don't care if the ingredients on the Tomate salad were grown in a monastery in the San Joaquin Valley and hand-delivered to the restaurant's door by the monks. There is no justification for their salad to cost $2.55 more than the Smart Alec's offering.

A salad of such proportions is a wonderful gift in most applications, but it was a tribulation during this session. I correctly assumed that finishing this salad would result in the skin surrounding my abdomen nearing laceration. I am sure my midriff has stretch marks with this salad's name on it. What I did not bargain for was the intense jaw pain I experienced eating this beast. All the chewing had left my entire face throbbing, as if I had been suckerpunched. Unlike certain session meals, it would have been ill-advised to try and swallow the salad with only a perfunctory chew. I had to thoroughly chomp every bite, lest I become a Heimlich Maneuver candidate. It took me at least an hour to finish this vegetable leviathan. Smart Alec's would be as far as I could eat for a while.

I was beginning to feel occasional violently effervescent episodes below my belt. Since Smart Alec's boasts one of the only restrooms on Telegraph Ave. accessible to customers, I decided to avail myself of their facilities, even though the urge to discharge had not yet reached DefCon 5. Despite the sign on the bathroom wall admonishing, "Do not use more toilet paper than you need. Toilet has a tendency to overflow," the bowl was filled with a massive mound of TP and excreta. I suspected the assemblage was going nowhere without considerable attention I was unwilling to devote in my condition. Regardless, I jostled the wad a little with the plunger and then flushed, hoping the commode could manage the massive volume of filth. Instead, the accumulation just rose in the toilet, resting millimeters from the rim. Fearing the worst, I fled the lavatory.

This failed attempt at plumbing took quite a few minutes. My fecal necessity was now becoming crucial. First, I bandied the idea of going to Lily's place a few blocks away to sully her bathroom. This notion was dashed, however, because Chris had already lit back there to perform the very same function! Lily suggested we go to Barrows Hall at UC where KALX is located. The building is only a few blocks away from Smart Alec's, but I had tremendous difficulty completing this walk with my contents intact. I had to stop every few steps to clench. This trek was as agonizing as when Christ was led on foot to Golgotha dragging his own cross. This whole affair showed me, though, that my sphincter control seems to have increased at my advance age. In the past, I wouldn't have made it across Bancroft without a leg full of excrement, yet I reached the campus restroom with my boxer briefs relatively unscathed.

I flung myself upon the throne and set to work immediately. The job, a conglomeration of pretzel logs marinating in original-flavor Gatorade, was finished almost instantly. I sat there panting from my ordeal. Hunched over, I noticed that there were thousands of ants walking on and around the wall inches from my left foot. Normally, I would have leapt from the stool in terror and burst from the stall without regard for wiping or pants-fastening. In my condition, though, I could do little but watch the ants go about their business and drift closer into a rectally-induced coma.

IEM Session #16.4

Inhuman Eating Machine official rules and guidelines

(Continued from 16.3)

Eating Day: March 19, 2011, what else?

MAOZ VEGETARIAN- 2395 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, 1:15pm- Salad Box w/Ice Tea- $8.00

Photo by Tigerlily
Three salads down. Nothing. Combined, the first trio of salads weighed at least 2 lbs., I'd reckon, but I may as well have eaten three pretzels. They just had not registered yet. I knew I had some serious contenders to come, but this voyage seemed even easier than I could have imagined.

I had wanted to try Maoz for a while since I spotted the joint while walking from Amoeba to Rasputin's in the midst of a dollar record sojourn. Yes, Maoz is a chain. They're an international chain, even, with stores in both the U.S. and Europe. In most cases, a chain this big would have fallen outside of the scope of the IEM by-laws, but the next closest Maoz to the one in Berkeley is roughly 3,000 miles away. I decided I would allow it in the session.

Maoz has kind of a weird system. If I came here on a day when I was in a hurry, I was grumpy, or I didn't feel like dealing with a restaurant's unique food formatting and policies, I might have walked out without ordering. The whole set-up seemed unnecessarily confusing. The "salad box" works like this. You start out with a round plastic bowl, not a box.) The bowl comes with a bed of lettuce (50/50 romaine and greens) and five falafel balls. Then you get a choice of a few different add-ons. I chose hummus and avocado. These steps are assembled by the counter guy. After he finishes this part, he hands you the box and then you can add more things from the salad bar. You can add all that you want into the bowl on a single trip. They make it abundantly clear that this is not an all-you-can-eat buffet-type salad bar a la Fresh Choice. So, you had better pile it on during your lone trip to the salad bar. If I was eating eight salads in a single day, I could have piled on an ungodly amount of salads into that box, but I decided to keep it plentiful but sane. The bowl had no more than a pound of plant matter inside. A fair amount, I felt. To the aforementioned ingredients I added the following salad bar items myself- carrot salad, beet salad, coleslaw, veggie salad (carrot coins, cauliflower, etc.), tomato wedges, sliced onions, and yogurt sauce.

If Maoz would have been around during the falafel session, it would have destroyed the competition. Today, only Oasis and another place I stopped later on the salad session are in the same falafel league as Maoz in the East Bay. The balls are extra crispy and seasoned correctly. The falafel were cooked to order here, still hot and crunchy on top of the salad, like the world's greatest crouton. The hummus was okay, but still somewhat out of balance. I've said it before. Getting the perfect garbanzo:tahini:garlic:lemon juice ratio is nearly impossible.

The salads from the self-service bar were gorgeous with their vibrant hues, but they tasted like their core vegetable without any zim or zam. And the yogurt "sauce" was just liquid yogurt. I could not taste anything in there other than plain old yogurt. I know they have spices at Maoz. The falafel was a taste explosion. Why dish up such neutral-tasting salads? Perhaps they don't want the falafel to be upstaged. I can understand this line of thinking, but it would take more than a little vinegar and black pepper on a beet salad to overpower these mighty balls. Maoz is worth a return for the falafel alone, but I may have to employ some of their other dressings if I try the salad box again. The falafel stifled its supporting players like Lee Marvin showing up on an episode of Hogan's Heroes.

After the Maoz salad, I felt only a slight semblance of a trace of fullness setting in. Gas had not even begun to develop in my entrails. I was riding high in the saddle. Unfortunately, the next stop was the 500lb. gorilla in the room.

IEM Session #16.3

Inhuman Eating Machine official rules and guidelines

(continued from 16.2)

Eating Day: March 19, 2011, yet again

NEW AMSTERDAM COFFEE- University Avenue, Berkeley, 12:12pm- The Big Salad- $7.25

Photo by Tigerlily

After a trip to the ill-conceived Emeryville Target store to purchase batteries, Lily and I ventured to the heart of downtown Berkeley. If Tomate is quintessential old-time Berkeley and Actual is North Oakland personified, then New Amsterdam is a prime example of the sort of establishment so prevalent in the vicinity of UC Berkeley. Tomate was populated by older types with frizzy hair and wide-wale cordurorys who have undoubtedly done time as Cal faculty. New Amsterdam, however, has a grad-school vibe to it. Their key demographic surely consists of teaching assistants who are enrolled in programs that are sufficiently esoteric to make any future career aspirations futile. There is a lot of soccer paraphernalia strewn about the place and there is always some kind of soccer-related programming on the television behind the counter. There are murals on the inside walls that depict what I assume to be the Netherlands. Perhaps the owner is from Holland. Or maybe the soccer theme is naught by a ruse set forth to give the illusion of worldliness.

In case you had forgotten, the session took place on a cold, gray, rainy day- the stuff of Natalie Merchant songs. Salads are not a meal that engenders warmth, so I was even more sensitive to the act of pure barbarism delivered upon me by a steady stream of customers who came in and out of the New Amsterdam to place coffee orders. These 20-somethings repeatedly exhibited an utter lack of regard for human life, leaving the front door open several inches. This offense allowed excruciating blasts of storm to enter the room, making me even colder than I was before entering. Who does such a thing? Why not pull the door completely closed? These devils seemed to be perpetrating this deed intentionally. It was not difficult to merely pull the door a few more inches to its rightful resting place. Is this what "acting locally" is all about? This travesty forced me to become fixated on the frequently ajar door, leaping up to close the door myself, when necessary.

Luckily, I soon became aware of the two guys sitting in the front table and forgot about my imminent frostbite. I assume these fellows were both video game designers. By their tone, I gathered that they had just met and they were on a business luncheon. They seemed to be trying to one-up each other with their brilliance. In a single sentence, I heard one of the nerds utter the words, "coalesce," "crux," and "gestalt." He seemed astounded when his compatriot appeared to understand the words' definitions. If these future billionaires weren't enough, I was seated across from the least-convincing transsexual/transvestite in history. In his/her early fifties, this character was dressed in Riot Grrrl garb, circa 1992. With the high Doc Martens, torn fishnets, and Abe Vigoda-esque bags under his/her eyes, this tranny made Dame Edna look like Christina Aguilera.

I could have sworn that I had told the guy at the register that I wanted to eat my salad in the restaurant. Nonetheless, it arrived in a square cardboard box, similar to a Chinese food container, but without the whimsical Asian characters on the side. New Amsterdam's "Big Salad" comes stock with romaine, seasonal greens, cucumbers, and red onions. Then you get your choice of 3 additional items from a list of about 20 vegetables, legumes, cheeses, etc. Some kind of meat was also available, but that cost extra. I ordered artichoke hearts, avocado, and seasoned chickpeas on mine. I have discovered in my travels that you get far more roughage when you order a big salad to eat-in than you when you get the salad to go. If I was a cheating man, I could have saved myself some agony and ordered all of the salads to-go after New Amsterdam mistakenly gave me my salad in a box. But I do not cheat my readers! The salad was heavy on the romaine, with just a hint of the seasonal greens, but there was a good deal of cucumbers and the add-ins I had chosen. The avocado was at the perfect level or ripeness and the artichoke hearts were tender with a slightly vinegar-y zing. The seasoned chickpeas didn't really seem very seasoned, though, unless New Amsterdam's idea of "seasoning" means salt. I remembered to get the dressing on the side this time. It was a slightly sweet offering, which was surprising for a dressing that was supposed to be smoked paprika. The dressing wasn't bad by any means, but it tasted kind of store bought, even though it probably wasn't.

The salad here was definitely acceptable, but I was somewhat disappointed. On my sole previous visit, the salad here made a very positive impression on me. I am not certain what happened, so I can only blame the fact that they erroneously gave me the salad to-go. Perhaps they were trying to send me a message.

P.S. Restaurateurs, please stop putting lemon slices into pitchers of water. A fresh slice of lemon on the side of a glass is fine. But when lemon wedges sit for hours in a pitcher of water, the water does not taste of citrus. It just tastes bitter and dirty.

IEM Session #16.2

Inhuman Eating Machine official rules and guidelines

(continued from 16.1)

Eating Day: Again, March 19, 2011

ACTUAL CAFE- 6334 San Pablo Avenue, Oakland- 10:40am- Real Big Salad- $7.00


Photo by Tigerlily

Like Tomate, this place had a similar rustic, bohemian bent, except it was appropriately more North Oakland than Berkeley. The clientele was younger than at Tomate. There was a framed t-shirt on the wall reading, "Oakland, CA- Dyke City." The counter lady who took my order had a thicker beard than I have. There was a bike rack (bicycle docking station) on the wall inside the restaurant. As usual, there were lots of sad-looking women who seemed far too mature to have borne the toddlers on their knees. The seating is long, communal, Oliver Twist-style wooden tables and benches. Best of all, there was a sign near the cash register proclaiming weekends as "laptop free." As far as I am concerned, the only thing worse than people loitering at cafes on their laptops is a cafe that tries to appear high and mighty by banning said devices two days a week. In general, Actual Cafe is not the type of place I would normally spend an entire meal on my own volition, but the $7 pricetag for the "Real Big Salad" was a welcome sight. Sadly, I was unable to repudiate this establishment out of hand.

True to its name, this salad was almost twice the size as the Tomate salas. It was built on a bed of mixed greens, with nary a leaf of romaine in sight. The greens were topped with a goodly amount of pickled vegetables (I detected cauliflowers and zucchini), currants, avocado, and toasted almonds, plus some shaved parmesan. Actual offered a choice of three different fruit add-ins: pears, apples, or strawberries. I figured that the berries were the best of these three choices, as they are a relatively "high-percentage fruit," with close to 70% of strawberry specimens being of good to excellent quality. Conversely, pears and apples hover around 50% or lower, depending on variety. The mustard vinaigrette was wonderfully zesty and added some bite to the salad. Even though I really enjoyed the dressing, I was glad Actual did not ladle it on with a heavy hand, as I had forgotten to specify to the bearded lady that I wanted my dressing on the side. It was as if they had read my mind and had administered the correct amount of vinaigrette for my taste.

Under normal conditions, my distaste for the atmosphere and clientele of Actual Cafe would deter me from spending measurable amounts of time on its premises. Food notwithstanding, I would rather sit unnoticed in a filthy noodle outlet in the Eastlake district while the staff and customers look at me suspiciously for daring to cross their threshold. I am not yet sure whether I love Actual's salad more than I hate their conspicuously "progressive" ambiance. If I am ever able to visit on a day when laptops are permitted, however, perhaps I can enjoy their delicious bargain salad immersed in wi-fi pornography or an episode of Murder, She Wrote, unencumbered by the trappings of North Oakland artisanal chumpitude.

IEM Session #16.1- You Don't Make Friends with Salad

Inhuman Eating Machine official rules and guidelines

I am calling the new format of Inhuman Eating Machine (IEM) a singular success. I published seven entries on seven consecutive Tuesdays- unprecedented regularity in the history of this blog. A couple of naysayers claim that there was more drama in the original format. They feel that the new installment plan eliminates some of the tension present in the previous saga-like configuration. I can understand this assertion, but I have to humbly disagree. The new format is here to stay, my friends. Climb aboard the modern bandwagon of my tales of crapulence, lest ye be left behind.

Let me explain why I feel the new format is a good fit for IEM. Firstly, I am a big fan of episodic adventure stories, be it a three-part account of the Brady Bunch in Hawaii, or a season-long story arc about the Ice Princess diamond on General Hospital. Breaking a story up into episodes leaves me coming back for more to see whether or not Vincent Price viciously disembowels Greg, Peter, and Bobby, and whether Mrs. Garret and Natalie get into a nasty three-way with George (Clooney), the handyman. Also, the installment approach is the only possible way for me to publish IEM on a regular basis. It parses my burden into manageable chunks. I have discovered that I can compose one entry per week with little difficulty. I don't want to curse myself, but with the new format, I can sincerely envision publishing a consistent stream of IEM sessions- one stop per week, a new session every 7-8 weeks. If you prefer to get your IEM in one massive dose, I suggest you wait eight weeks before accessing the blog in order to digest the entire session all at once.

From the previous 15 sessions of IEM, one might make the supposition that I eschew vegetables in favor of fat-laden-carbohydrate-and-greasefests. Yes, in a perfect world, I would probably eat fried starch and meat 5 meals a day for the rest of my life, possibly "forgetting" about the existence of the healthier fruits of the earth. In reality, though, I actually eat quite a bit of roughage. Between IEM sessions, when I am usually trying to maintain or lose weight, the bulk of my diet consists of vegetables. On some days, I eat enough vegetables to get the USRDA of said food group for an entire city block. Alas, vegetables just do not satisfy hunger the way bread or grain or Hot Pockets do. I could eat an entire farm before reaching the satiety I feel after downing a single 20" pizza. Lest it be said that I eat vegetables only out of health obligations, I want it to be known that I actually enjoy almost every vegetable. There must be a vegetable I don't like, but I can't think of one. I gladly eat vegetables as a side order or as a main course. I will even eat them when they accompany something far sexier and flavorful. I would happily devour a colossal pile of steamed cauliflower, even if it shared a plate with a chicken fried steak the size of a manhole cover. If vegetables are served, I am glad to have them- and do not ingest them as a mere health regimen component. After 15 sessions of eating foods containing enough oil to run a city bus for a week, I decided to do a session paying tribute to salad- vegetables in their most obvious setting.

Before I moved to the Bay Area for the third time in 1996, I imagined that people here must be eating salads for every meal. I soon realized that, while there are indeed salads available at many restaurants here, they generally play a supporting role, just like in the rest of the country. The salads here tend to have more exotic ingredients than you'd find in Sheboygan, but in most East Bay locales, you can't really make a full meal out of a salad, especially if you are a disgusting pig like I am. It was actually quite a challenge to compile a sizeable list of eateries who seemed to have an entree-size salad, a "big salad," if you will. If you recall, there are two episodes of Seinfeld where the big salad appears. In the "Big Salad" episode, George becomes irate when he doesn't get adequate credit for paying for Elaine's big salad. In "The Soup," Elaine is upset that she can't get a big salad at Reggie's after the gang can't go to their usual hangout (Monk's), due to George's bumbling.

(Outside of Monk's)
Jerry: We can't eat here anymore, 'cause he took a waitress out for a walk.
George: What's the difference? Let's go to Reggie’s.
Elaine: Reggie’s? I can't eat anything there.
George: It's the same menu.
Elaine: There's no “Big Salad.”
George: They'll make you a “Big Salad.” What do you think, they're the only one that makes a “Big Salad”?
Elaine: All right. Let's go, to Reggie’s.

(At Reggie's)

Jerry: I'll have the turkey club without the bacon.
George: And I'll have the bacon club without the turkey.
Elaine: Can I have a big salad?
Waitress: A big salad?
Elaine: You see?!
George: [irritated] Just tell them what you want. They'll make it for you.
Elaine: It's a salad, only bigger, with lots of stuff in it.
Waitress: I can bring you two small salads.
Elaine: Could you put it in a big bowl?
Waitress: We don't have big bowls.
Elaine: All right, just get me a cup of decaf.
Waitress: We have Sanka.

With a pedigree like that, how could I NOT devote an entire session to eating salads with lots of stuff in them?

Eating Day: March 19, 2011

TOMATE- 1998 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley- 9:44am- Simple House Salad w/Tri-Tip (Full) $9.50

Photo by Tigerlily

Before I began this session, I found myself more than 10lbs. heavier than usual. I could tell you that I have been eating unwisely lately, due to new obligations at school and work. I could explain that the session occurred only two days after a St. Patrick's Day party where I ate my weight in corned beef and colcannon. Or, I could use the old standby, "I was retaining water because of my period." Unfortunately, the truth is I am just a disgusting individual who finds it hard to stop eating anything that is not nailed down. With my brain more occupied these days than at any time in the last two years, it was very easy for me to take my eyes off the scale and really let myself go, but if I wasn't such a slave to my stomach, I could have kept myself in check. I probably should have postponed this session until I got back to a reasonable weight, but after seven consecutive weeks of posting IEM, I felt I owed it to you all to keep the streak alive. I rationalized my salad gorging by explaining both of the following to myself:

1. "They're just salads. It's not like I am doing a session on MILKSHAKES!" (Coming soon!)
2. With any luck, 90% of the plant-based food ingested during the session will exit the premises of my gastrointestinal system with 24 hours of the session.
3. If the salads don't jettison themselves in the timely manner I predict, I can always starve myself after the session.
   

The session began on what seemed like the 943rd consecutive day of rain in the Bay Area. I know I shouldn't complain about a little inclement weather a week after Japan was destroyed and irradiated, but I live in California, where seven days without sunshine seems like an eternity. People commit suicide here for far less. On a cold and rainy day, salad was the last thing I wanted to eat, but the die was already cast. I had been planning the big salad session for months and had done extensive research on the subject. It was far too late to switch the featured food of the session. I picked up my friend Lily, who had decided she wanted to come along and videotape my sojourn. She had accompanied me with her camera on two previous IEM sessions. The first time, along with Chris Anderson, she created the epic torta video. Next, she shot the pupusa session. Footage from that session wound up in D. Silva's Inhuman Eating Machine documentary, which recently screened at the SF Indiefest film festival. I am grateful that she has found it worth her while to provide yet another visual document of my mission.

Tomate is located in an industrial district not far from the Berkeley Marina, populated by warehouses and the galleries of local artists/artisans. The cafe is very "Berkeley" in both its design and clientele. The majority of the customers were middle aged or older; mostly clad in earth tones and sandals. There was ambient electronic music playing softly in the background. The bulletin board was packed with flyers for various causes and performances, like every other cafe in Berkeley. The ceiling has high exposed rafters, which is a nice design feature, but very hard to heat, so I was shocked to find Tomate so warm inside. I was even able to remove my coat, which would have been a near impossibility at any restaurant within the Oakland city limits.

The salad came in an 8" diameter bowl; its contents packed about 2" deep. The base was heavy on the romaine lettuce and light on the fancy mixed greens. The greenery was topped with red onions, cucumber slices, radish coins, shredded carrots, tomato wedges, and alfalfa sprouts. You may remember that I have an aversion to alfalfa sprouts, because they smell exactly like fresh semen. Under normal conditions, I would have ordered the salad sans-sprouts, but for this vege-centric session, I felt it my duty to eat everything they gave me. The vegetables were the bed for what I reckon was no more than 3 ounces of grilled tri-tip beef. The meat was juicy, marinated, and still warm, but a little overdone for my tastes. I took the balsamic vinaigrette dressing on the side, like I would for all the salads, provided I remembered to make this specification when ordering. Tomate's vinaigrette was quite good- heavy on the balsamic and garlic added conservatively.

This was supposedly a full-sized entree salad, but unless you're a Berkeley goofball, Tomate's offering is not large enough to constitute an entire meal for anyone who has reached the age of majority. If I wasn't in the midst of a session, I would have been furious with the relative scantiness of this salad. $9.50 is steep for any salad, unless it is loaded with fried chicken, seafood, or a whole steak, but charging such a hefty sum for a sprinkling of meat atop what is scarcely more than a side salad- that is an atrocity!

It would become clear throughout the session that "big" means very little when you discuss the big salad. Unlike a quarter pounder, which must actually contain 1/4 pound of beef (weight prior to cooking), "big" is in the eye of the beholder. A gluten-free Berkeleyite coming to lunch after a high colonic and a game of ultimate frisbee might find this salad substantial, but to the right-thinking people of the real world, there is nothing big about the Tomate simple house salad, other than the price.

IEM Session #15.8- The BBQ Beef Wrap-Up

Apparently, some IEM readers wanted a list of the BBQ joints I felt were the best. At first, I was gonna say, "Read the damn blog! Which places sound the best to YOU?" I give the people what they want, though, so I have acquiesced and provided you with a Top 3 and Bottom 1 list.

Keep in mind, BBQ around here is inconsistent, especially the meat component of the BBQ. A place with good product today could be iffy tomorrow. And vice versa.

TOP 3 BBQ Beef Sandwiches (On April 29, 2010)

1. Elve's

2. Maggie Ray's

3. Tomm's

Last Place:

Old South

If you want to read the whole damn episode at once, here are links to all eight stops in chronological order.

1. Chef Edwards
2. Uncle Willie's
3. Elve's
4. Maggie Ray's
5. Old South
6. Phatt Matt
7. Tomm's/Everett & Jones

IEM Session #15.7

Inhuman Eating Machine official rules and guidelines

(continued from 15.6)

Eating Day: For the last time, April 29, 2010

TOMM'S- 3446 Market St- 6:54pm- $5.99


EVERETT AND JONES- 3700 E. 12th. St- 7:19pm- $8.60



I dropped Vinnie off at MacArthur BART. He had apparently had his fill of watching someone old enough to be his father eat barbecued beef. I think he chose wisely, as I was now filling my surroundings with a veil of gaseous despair. The stench was reminiscent of the time I inadvertently left a Quarter Pounder under the seat of my car, where it sat to ripen for a fortnight. Vinnie is a young man, a bon vivant, a man about town. He has better things to do than subject himself to the odors of a geriatric fellow-traveler with gluttonous tendencies.

I was able to complete the Phat Matt's sandwich without too much difficulty, but afterwards, I knew I had to pause again. I was now forced to corral two more sandwiches and take them home to finish later once a modicum of space was freed up in my innards. I had to complete the session before the witching hour, when the only bbq available in town would have been a McRib. I apologize that this method has become a staple of most of the sessions. I realize that taking meals to go, rather than eating them in the restaurant where they were purchased, reduces my chances of witnessing the life-changing scenarios that often occur within a restaurant. But what choice do I have? I am but a man; mere flesh and blood and stomach acid. I can only eat so much. When tasked with the completion of eight meals in one day, I am exposed to the same mortal shortcomings that you are. I simply cannot put away food non-stop while on these excursions. I gorge and I rest. Gorge and rest. These resting periods can last for hours, depending on the day, the food, and portion size. But as I rest, my options start to shrink. Due to the East Bay's hatred of nocturnal dining, at a certain point, ALL of my choices for a featured food will disappear entirely. At 10pm, my appetite may be fully restored, but the point will be moot, because at that hour, there are close to zero options afforded to Oakland gourmands. One can only stockpile during the daylight hours like the Ant in Aesop's Ant and the Grasshopper. Otherwise, come the wee hours, there will be no food available. Starvation will ensue, and the session will be lost. For true comparative purposes, I always try to take at least a taste of each to-go meal immediately after ordering, to ensure that I can experience the food in ideal conditions. I will not penalize an establishment's food for becoming coagulated before I am able to finish it.

If you recall, I had stopped at Tomm's around 10am. It was supposed to be the first stop of the day. Unfortunately, they had no bbq beef available at that time. I wasn't holding my breath when the girl behind the counter said they would have brisket later in the day. I had recently tried Tomm's for the first time. On that visit, I ordered the Jumbo Pork sandwich. It was a god-send. It was huge. It was cheap ($4.69 for a massive sandwich.) It was very Memphis-esque. From that visit, I had high hopes that Tomm's would be a major contender in the bbq beef sweepstakes.

When I returned to Tomm's, almost nine hours after my visit in the morning, I was pleasantly surprised when the girl behind the counter recognized me and said, "We finally have brisket!" Other than the flagship Everett and Jones near Jack London Square, Tomm's is the largest bbq restaurant in Oakland. But it is haphazardly decorated with a lot of space gone to waste. For no apparent reason, there is an old cruiser-style bicycle perched over a massive bank of soft drink coolers- coolers that are only 1/4 filled with drinks. There are also some motel-style paintings here and there and a plastic plant, which a friend described as, "The only plastic plant I've ever seen that looked like it was about to die." Yes, the inside of Tomm's is drab and uninspired. The shop's appearance belies no trace of effort. It has the kind of look you'd expect at a wholesale operation where customers don't come around. But I didn't come there for the atmosphere or to impress gentiles.

The brisket here is as consistent as the pulled pork. I opened up the yellow wrapper and I found a massive pile of beef topped with an even larger pile of coleslaw. I was distended beyond comfort, but I took a single bite of the sandwich so I could sample the creation while it was still warm. The slaw would have been too soupy served a la carte, but it complemented the meat perfectly, soaking into the beef and adding a nice level of tangy creaminess. The meat was a thing of beauty- smokey with lots of crispy ends throughout and a good degree of oily juiciness mingling with the slaw dressing. The bun was a pedestrian store-bought sesame burger bun, but at least it was fresh. The bbq sauce isn't exactly a showstopper here. It's neither sweet, nor hot, nor highly-seasoned. But it doesn't get in the way, either. En toto, Tomm's sandwiches are in the upper echelon of the East Bay bbq world, but the iffy sauce keeps it from reaching perfection.

Everett & Jones, on the other hand, are sauce masters. And they know it. E&J's sauce is sweet and smokey with notes of paprika throughout and just the right amount of garlic. The hot bbq sauce is actually quite spicy on occasion. The sauce is so renowned, that they even sell the stuff at area supermarkets. But they rest on the laurels of their sauce the way the New York Yankees rub their 27 championships in the faces of the world, even during the years the Yankees have a lousy season. There is absolutely no consistency among E&J branches and not much of it within the same location. There is no pulled pork here, but the beef and ribs here are a crapshoot. (Mitch claims that the E&J hot links are always stellar, but I never order those at a barbecue joint, as they don't seem to require the pit expertise needed with pork or beef or ribs.) E&J seems to think that we should just be grateful for their sauce, even if they give you rubbery pieces of what could have been a Pomeranian, along with stale wheat bread. They could at least provide bigger portions of the mysterious offal-like meat, but they generally serve a mere few sinewy strips swimming in the famous sauce. Yes, the sauce is a world-beater, but even it was unable to disguise all of the connective tissue in the Styro container they gave me during this session. My mandible had to work overtime after I took a small bite in the car on the way back home. One might think you'd be more likely to receive low-rent meat at E&J outposts in the hinterlands, but I've had some funky-ass gristle from both the "fancy" location in Jack London and the E&J on San Pablo in Berkeley.

When I arrived home, I was still stuffed, but I knew I'd be able to eat soon. And with less than a pound of sandwiches remaining to polish off, failure was out of the question. After about an hour, I returned to the toilet and produced a single offering- an oblong scat sculpture in the shape of a souvenir mini-football. With the sauce fused with the cold meat and slaw on the Tomm's sandwich, the whole congealed affair was easy to eat- firm like an individual pecan pie. It was gone in less than a minute.

The E&J sandwich, however, was a little more work. It wasn't really a sandwich, but the commonly-seen meat-with-a side-of-wheat bread swimming in sauce. There wasn't much meat, but the excess fat and cartilage was rough work to finish. (I think E&J may be getting their meat from the same place where Pho restaurants get their adventurous cuts.)

My hunger was back, but for how long? Gristle be damned, I had to seize the opportunity. After it became too arduous a task to chew many of the challenging pieces of "meat" I had received, I devised a brilliant strategy. I began taking spoonfuls of sauce and small pieces of the tendon-y stuff and swallowing the whole thing whole. This was how my mother used to get me to take aspirin as a kid, except she used grape jelly instead of barbecue sauce. In a few minutes, the whole unappetizing thing was gone. I didn't even choke to death, due to the lack of chewing. My apologies to the many E&J devotees I know, but I refuse to talk about E&J in the hushed tones you seem to feel it deserves. Until the meat at E&J is as consistent as their sauce, they get no special treatment from me.

The food was gone well before 10pm. I probably could have put down at least three more sandwiches before midnight- if only such a possibility existed in the East Bay. On an Inhuman Eating Machine gorging session, I went to bed not fully satiated! A travesty! New Oakland Mayor Jean Quan needs to get on the stick and create some sort of business incubator that enables me to make a pig out of myself after 9pm. A single IEM session would stimulate the economy so much, an entire elementary school could provide Reading is Fundamental (RIF) for a week.

NEXT WEEK- IEM #16 begins- The Big Salad!