food

On a lark, I took my wife out to Bing Crosby's Restaurant and Piano Lounge way the hell over in Walnut Creek. It's a grueling 40 minute trek across the bridge and into the wilds of the East Bay, but I was overcome by curiosity about this establishment that bore my surname.

We found the restaurant nestled just off Walnut Creek's quaint center of downtown. For a reasonable six bucks, we valet parked and entered the large wooden front doors held open for us by a friendly, sharp-dressed doorman—not a bouncer, mind you, but a proper doorman. In a suit, no less.

In response to my earlier blog post about the dangers of Diet Coke—or more realistically, recent charges that Sodium Benzoate is altering the DNA of children—the Coca-Cola Company has finally decided to remove this "taste-protecting" substance from all their sodas, including Fanta, Dr. Pepper, Sprite and Diet Coke (although not regular Coke).

I simply refuse to believe that my daily fix of Diet Coke, a delicious carbonated beverage that tastes like a combination of cola, chemicals and metal shavings, could be unhealthy. But more and more research implies just that.

The latest concerns centre on the safety of ...sodium benzoate, a preservative used for decades by the £74bn global carbonated drinks industry. Sodium Benzoate derives from benzoic acid. It occurs naturally in berries, but is used in large quantities to prevent mould in soft drinks such as Sprite, Oasis and Dr Pepper.

Foie Gras. It's a kind of food. As I understand it, the term means "goose liver" in, I'm guessing, French. Who else would eat something like that? (Well, me, for one. Read on...)

That's right. Liver.

I'm not addicted to much: The Daily Show; The Simpsons; Lost; My Mac; The Internet. (Okay, maybe I'm addicted to a lot.) But the addiction most likely to kill me is the one to Diet Coke—thanks to Aspartame. Despite a mountain of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, most of the scientific community believes Diet Coke is safe. Aspartame: review of safety states that "The safety testing of aspartame has gone well beyond that required to evaluate the safety of a food additive." While Cytotoxic effects of methanol, formaldehyde, and formate on dissociated rat thymocytes: a possibility of aspartame toxicity suggests that "aspartame at abuse doses is harmless to humans." However, a survey of all aspartame studies found: "One hundred percent of the industry funded research attested to aspartame's safety, whereas 92 percent of the independently funded research identified a problem." I'm holding onto that problem-free 8% like pitbull with a T-bone.

A new, trendy restuarant just opened inside the Crocker Galleria offering "Japanese vegetarian restaurant serving a centuries-old Zen Buddhist diet." (Sounded interesting, I dig the Buddhists.) It's called, "Medicine." Actually, the full name is Medicine New-Shojin Eatstation, and that's more of a mouthful than you get eating there. A coworker and I had the Soba and the Tempura lunches, each about $10. Undoubtedly, most of that money went to pay the staff of 17 employees that we spotted (at lunch, no less), it certainly didn't end up on the plate. We were confused by most of what little arrived. Even after tasting the tiny items of food, we spent the better part of the meal trying to figure out what the hell any of it was. I got the Tempura plate, figuring "How bad can deep-fried food be?" Now, I know. The menu is all vegetarian so you don't feel like crap after eating there, but you don't feel like you got any food either. Had we taken that same fifteen dollars (mandatory 17% tip added for your convenience) into the Farmer's Market next door, we would've eaten like vegetarian kings. I'm sure the staff, who probably overheard us talk of making a quick run to Wendy's after, felt that we probably "didn't get it." But, without a doubt, we got it. We'll just probably never get it again. If, however, you like small portions of odd food that cost a lot, you'll love the place.

Do you like garlic? I mean, really like garlic? I mean, like it so much you don't mind people gagging at your mere scent? Would you bathe in the stuff if you could? Then you've got to go to Gilroy, California. It is in the middle of nowhere (southeast of San Jose) and home of America's premier and darn near ONLY garlic resources. And guess what? They have a festival. Yeah! A garlic festial! And we went! (Don't ask why. We were bored.)