Tea... Earl Grey... Hot...

The other afternoon, Jenni and I succumbed to the desire for Panera Bread for lunch. For those of you that have never had the pleasure, Panera Bread occupies a weird niche in the restaurant scene, high-quality fast food in a warm, inviting environment. Think the sitting area of Barns & Noble or Borders that serves artisan sandwiches, soups, and salads on, in, or with its own delectable breads.

The weirdly cool thing about Panera Bread, at least at the three locations I've been to, is how amazingly fast they are at preparing damn tasty food. You'd be hard pressed to get your drink and find a seat before your coaster pager goes off. That's pretty impressive considering how long it takes McDonald's to get me sub-standard sustenance.


After commenting to Jenni about their super-speediness, she pointed out that it's really not that surprising, given the little they really needed to do to serve sandwiches and soup. Admittedly, whereas a sandwich of elaborate complexity or even a panini still only requires minimal cooking time, just microwaving a Big Mac will take a while. "It's not like they're roasting a chicken back there," we joked (we had some friends over last week for homemade roast chicken).


This got me to thinking.

Any last requests?

Now, I'm pretty sure they meant this sundae as a "Happy Ending" for your meal but that name inherently takes on a new, morbid connotation when presented on the Seniors page of the menu...

"Enjoy our Happy Ending Sundae; it may be your last!"

D'Artagnan Bar?

3 Musketeers, a division of Mars, just came out with a new variation on the classic 3 Musketeers bar:

"Whipped chocolate truffle filling sits on top of an airy crispy layer, surrounded by that 3 MUSKETEERS® Brand chocolate you love."

The only thing they're actually claiming that this candy shares with the bar it takes its name from is the chocolate covering. As if the chocolate covering is the unique identifier that makes people love or hate 3 Musketeers bars.


I can understand Milky Way: Simply Caramel or even 3 Musketeers: Mint, but if you change the size, lose the original filling, and add another filling, you really need to just market a new candy bar. Hell, Mars owns the Twix brand too! Why not just make another iteration of that candy bar? There's already Twix: Peanut Butter and Twix: Java...

Look familiar?

Real Imitation Mexican Food!

I have enjoyed my fair share of both fast-food and authentic Mexican food. Enjoying each for what they are. When Taco Bell announced their line of Cantina Tacos, I quickly cringed, then laughed heartily to myself. Taco Bell was going to try to make actual Mexican food? How bizarre! Instead of mass-produced taco shell, filled with "seasoned" ground beef, cheese, and shredded iceberg lettuce, these more traditional tacos would consist of ~80% meat, with some onion and cilantro in two plain-old soft corn tortillas.

So today I finally went and ordered their Cantina Taco Combo. I had one of each offered meat and then I ordered a normal crunchy taco for comparison. Clearly, someone at Taco Bell's development team has eaten real Mexican food, and someone else is in charge of securing cheep meat. These two people are probably bitter office rivals and don't send each other Christmas cards. The carnitas taco was great. I will probably order at least one of these from now on. The steak and chicken tacos, however, were rather disappointing. As I mentioned earlier, these tacos are mostly meat and if, as was the case, the meat sucks then so does the taco.

After cleansing my pallet with a crunchy taco, I came to the conclusion that I like this line of thought and these really were a good attempt at authentic Mexican food. However, when I return to Taco Bell I will probably order more fake-Mexican food than otherwise, and if I want the latter I'll go to a real Mexican restaurant.