Food Review: Day 2

Starbucks Bagel

This bagel was awesome! I think maybe because it was mainly full of butter. It tasted exactly like croissants! America does bagels well.

Rating: 4 Stars
Contains MSG? No

Twinkies

Lyndal: An American classic food, I was excited to try this. A major disappointment. The cake was ok, but the mock cream was disgusting. Far sweeter than mock cream I have had in packaged cakes before, and worse than the cream on top of the Jack in the Box shake.

Rating: 1 star
Contains HFCS? Yes
Contains MSG? No

Donettes (Chocolate)

Lyndal: I chose 'frosted' (vs. 'powdered sugar' and the terrifying 'crunchy'), but these tiny donuts were just dipped in weird sort of compound cooking chocolate. The actual donut was on par with a supermarket donut in Australia, Webber said the chocolate coating was also the same. Enjoyable, but very sweet. Only eat one at a time.

Rating: 3 stars
Contains HFCS? No
Contains MSG? No

Pinks Hot Dog (Guacamole)

This was good I got it all over my face!

Rating: 4 Stars - Shara, 5 stars - Lyndal
Contains MSG? Probably not

Chicken Teriyaki

Shara and I got this at the Korean joint we went to for dinner. It came with combination tofu soup, which apparently means tofu soup plus a whole bunch of things you are supposed to put in it including a big ol fish? The chicken teriyaki was real good, there was a whole bunch of chicken and the rice was also good. I didn't really have much of the soup because it was bubbling hot when we got it, and then by the time it had cooled down I had filled up on chicken. The bit I had was nice, but I'm not a huge fan of this falling-apart tofu. The tiny bit of vegies/kimchi I had seemed nice, but I was too full and too scared to try egg and fish. Shara said the chicken was good but she thinks it made her real sick, so she is sad about that. Oh also they served the rice out of stone jars and put hot water in the jars, and then came back ten minutes later and served us hot rice water??? I didn't drink it in case it was secretly for washing your hands or decoration or something. This would have been much easier if Jono and Jo had have taken us to Korean in Sydney first!!

Rating: 4 stars
Contains MSG? No

Dumpling Soup

Lyndal: Same soup as everyone else, there were 3 meat wontons in total which were very tasty. The tofu was the kind I like, very soft like the stuff you get in miso soup. I braved cracking a raw egg into my soup but it kind of just disappeared and melded with all the tofu. Was also given some rice? Anyway this was great, better than wonton soup I have had previously which is usually just clear broth.

Rating: 4 stars
Contains MSG? No

Salad

endlessmike got this one. This was an incredibly huge salad. endlessmike said it was reasonably good, the dressing was apparently quite lemony and tasty. It did just seem to have fancy lettuce, tofu, olives and carrot though? So maybe a bit boring. I am estimating her rating. Lyndal and Shara had some of the tofu in this and said it was not enjoyable. Shara said it was like egg bread covered in sugar.

Rating: 3 stars
Contains MSG? No

Weird Dried Fish Thing

Lyndal: Arrived warm. Picked some flesh off the fish, ended up with a bone stuck in my throat. Meat was tasty enough. Nobody was sure what you were actually meant to do with this guy in relation to the soup.

Rating: 1 star
Contains MSG? No

Day 2: Scientology, sex and bongs

(This was written by Lyndal but Blogger logged her out)

(I am writing this partly from notes I wrote in my written journal because I can't remember this morning)

Happy Inauguration Day!

The official swearing in of the new president was on at 9am EST. We woke up at 10:15am when endlessmike called us, oops.

Shara needed morning carbs and a cup of tea, so I had to go downstairs to the coffee shop in the hotel because there is no kettle in the room, only a coffee maker. Shara actually wanted to buy a kettle so we asked Casey in Indiana who started talking about needing a hotplate? So he is weird, Americans don't understand tea.
Anway I went and bought a toasted bagel and had a mug filled with hot water, I had no idea who and when you tip people so for the $2.70 bagel I tipped $1 because that was what I had in my hand then Webber lol'd at me so we had to check with Kat and that was the wrong thing to do.
Shara had vegemite on her bagel, which was apparently also the wrong thing to do. Also butter in America is white.

Kristen suggested we could head to Hollywood via the Metro subway, Kristen gave us the impression that the Metro is for bums and lesser hobos who cannot afford a car so we were expecting to be shivved on the train but it turns out the subway is far cleaner than any CityRail station in Sydney. Also there are no actual ticket gates so we could've gotten away with not purchasing any tickets (but we ended up buying 2 single tickets each and then realising the tickets were only valid for an hour after purchase, $1.25 per ticket).

Hollywood was....okay.

Lots of old buildings, oh and so many Scientology buildings!! We first walked to the L. Ron Hubbard Life Museum, it was on the map at the Metro which showed all these really important buildings like the Police station and a hospital and nothing else of note. At the museum Shara took a photo of Webber and I in front of a bust of L. Ron Hubbard, while Shara was changing the lens Webber took photos of quotes by Nicole Kidman and Kate Cebrano and the dude at the desk asked where we were from, I was amazed he didn't try and test our thetans.

Then we passed a shop that only sold Dianetics in multiple languages, and a woman came out and tried to rope us in.
Thirdly we came up to a museum that appeared to have an exhibition called 'Psychiatry: An Industry of Death' but turns out that is the name of the whole place! It's made by the Citizens Commision on Human Rights which is just owned by Scientology anyway.


Went to a Jack in the Box, review later.
Popped by a "drug store", this was a bizarre experience because there was a massive range of brands and products for each ailment. Sorry America, but you don't need 40 different types of paracetamol/Tylenol. Also YOU SHOULDN'T SELL BEER AND WINE IN A PHARMACY. EVER.

Oh shit! I had to come back and say bong shops a-plenty on Hollywood Blvd! There were some amazing ones like a 6 foot perspex bong you would need to stand on a ladder to use.


Anyway Hollywood was weird and we were tired so we just went back to the hotel and dicked around until endlessmike met us after work and we went for Korean at Tofu House.
We had never ordered the crazy stuff we were served, which included a whole cooked fish, but full review later!

We have just switched channels and there is an amazing looking court show called 'Eye for an Eye' and the judge has a BASEBALL BAT OF JUSTICE, omg!

At the end of the meal Shara suggested I check out the toilets and they didn't disappoint! They were decorated in all green and had automatic soap dispenser, water and paper towel. Also, mouthwash dispenser!!
Anyway at the end of the meal Alicia joined us, and we piled into her dad's massive truck (you could fit approx. 10 dead bodies in there, however it's up for debate) and headed up to the observatory which was totally rad. Here is Alicia's truck with me being sexy for scale:


We saw a coyote! The view of the city was beautiful.

The building was great too.


Also we saw a Tesla coil in action, and met Einstein

And just to prove we met these 2 ladies here is a photo of us with Alicia that endlessmike took!

Next up Alicia drove us to Jon's supermarket where we found amazing things like Kookies cereal but we couldn't find pulpy orange juice that came in a container less than 2L. We bought more drinks for review, including Mexican Coke that we hope will be more similar to Australian.
I needed to buy a glue stick for my journal, but Alicia and endlessmike advised me I would need to go to a pharmacy for this. OF COURSE. Also you can buy $480 tequila at the supermarket.

BLUE RASPBERRY

COOKIE CEREAL (note multiple brands)

PARFAIT IN A TUB

HUGE TIN OF NESQUIK

Before finishing for the night we went to Pink's hot dog stand where Alicia waited in line for about 15min for a guacamole dog which Shara ate half of.

Now it is somehow 2am and we gotta sleep! Tomorrow is art museums, hell yea!

Soda Review: Day 2

Dasani Water (with "minerals")

I bought this partly because I really needed to drink something that didn't have sugar in it, and partly because I really needed to poo at the place we bought this from and I assume since you have to ask to go to the toilet at all fast food joints that is so they can tell you to buy something or get out? Anyway I am reviewing this because according to the label this is not just water, it is water that they added salt and a bunch of other shit to. For "flavor". The Coca Cola Company, ladies and gentlemen. Anyway this tasted the same as tap water so I would give it three stars (the star rating chilled tap water gets), but I took off a star because I am creeped out that they ADDED SALT TO BOTTLED WATER IN ORDER TO MAKE IT MORE APPETISING TO AMERICANS. Oh ps this bottle of water cost more than any soda on their menu.

Rating: 2 stars
Contains HFCS? Not according to the label but if they add salt to their water WHO KNOWS???

Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino

Lyndal bought this at the supermarket last night.
I am a huge fan of the coffee drinks in a can you can get from Asian grocery shops, like Mr. Brown, that are cold, milky, sugary coffee. This is how I tend to drink coffee anyway, so this thing looked great, but it didn't fail to meet America sweetness standards.
I couldn't finish it, even after trying to drink it in 2 sittings, this was far sweeter than any Asian coffee drink.

Rating: 2 stars
Contains HFCS? No

Jack In The Box Pomegranate Berry Smoothie

We made Lyndal get this because we thought it looked pretty interesting, and the most refreshing on the menu. It was pretty scary. It was way too sweet, like if you got a boost juice and then added seven tablespoons of sugar. I couldn't really taste the pomegranate either, it was mostly just berry. Reasonably refreshing though, if way too sweet.

Rating: 3 stars
Contains HFCS? Probably

Jack In The Box Chocolate Shake (with Whip)

After the success of yesterday's shake we thought we would see if this one was as good. I didn't like it quite as much as the Fatburger shake, but it still delivered the goods in a way that Australian shakes cannot. Still really chocolatey and thick. This one had whip on top though, which was totally crazy. I don't eat cream anyway but according to Shara and Lyndal this was mock cream, which is just butter and sugar. There was also a huge amount of it. They ate it but weren't happy about the situation. If we were to order any more shakes on this trip it would definitely be sans cream. The drink you see in the picture was a large, which we could not finish between the two of us. I felt sick for a reasonable time period afterwards. Great shake though.

Rating: 4 stars
Contains HFCS? Probably

Here is Lyndal with some drinks: