NEEDS BACON, CURRY, AND CHILIPASTE

Deep in the bowels of the city lies the beast. Hungry, hungry, hungry. Fortunately this blogger lives nearly ten blocks away from there, and seldom goes south of California Street, which marks the boundary of the DMZ. Basically, I stick to my part of the city, which is Nob Hill, Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill.

There are small islands of civilization elsewhere.

In the past two decades I have rarely visited Union Square, and other than a few eateries in the Tenderloin owned and staffed by folks whose native tongue is not English, that area is also one that I avoid, except when dragooned into jury duty.

The civic center is where drug addicts and bureaucrats lurk.
It's been pestilential for several decades.


Most cities have no-go zones, which although not really dangerous, are places that residents mostly don't visit unless they have the misfortune of living there. As I understand it, for large parts of the deep south and Texas that's pretty much their entire hinterland. By the way: any place with open cary is populated entirely by violent inbred Christians, so those too are areas no one with a brain should go. From the edge of the valley all the way to Staten Island more or less qualifies, whether or not there are guns and banjos there.

WHAT BREAKFAST SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Main rule of thumb: If the only spices are salt and pepper, and the most common hot sauces are reddish vinegar, stay away, The only tourist attraction is the second biggest ball of twine, Saturday night involves crappy beer, loud music, and junk food from a drive thru window.
And they're probably too illiterate to read traffic signs.

During my work days I deal with the suburbanite and rural Karens and Billy Joe Bobs enough that on my days off there is no pressing need to see them. Whether they're from the rest of the country, Europe, or India, makes no difference.

[Yes, I do know that they invented curry in India. Having worked part-time at an Indian restaurant for well-over a decade I've heard so much ignorant bullpuckey from subcontinentals about their own cuisine and every one else's that I largely ignore whatever they have to say about food now. Which is also how I approach Europeans opinionating about American cooking, or Americans talking about Chinese food. There is an overwhelming level of sheer downright gut-wrenching stupidity and ignorance out there, okay?]

The only part of American cuisine which has my unalloyed and complete respect is the weird stuff we do with bacon over here. If you are passionate enough bacon can go on everything. For some people, bacon is a religion. Jesus, Buddha, and Sri Ram combined.

Kudos, all of you sick artery cloggers, kudos.

Goes great with sambal.



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