Gray's Papaya at 4 am

Like I said before, I have really good friends. They tend to accept my habits of wanting to go to random restaurants with 0 reviews, and my tendencies to make them wait as I photograph not only my food, but theirs as well. With that said, they're also sometimes morons. Case in point, the clown who walked into my photo of the storefront up top. Now, I like really like hot dogs (the fact that back to back posts are of wieners is just coincidence though). When I was a kid, my parents would always cook 2 packs of them, just because I'd always complain that there wasn't enough for 4 people. Hm, maybe I can blame my parents for being overweight through college. In any case, when my friend asked if I wanted to go to Gray's Papaya at 4 am (which in retrospect was an incredibly stupid proposal), I reluctantly folded and said yes. Now for the food...



Backstory, freshman year I went to Gray's once. I walked there from 116th with someone I lived with at the time. The recession special was $2.75 and got you 2 franks with a special house drink. Fast forward to 2010, and all of a sudden, the recession special is $4. Plus tax. That's not even a special! Anyway, I couldn't not get food just because I was slightly irked at the price change, so I went with the default order, with a banana daiquiri as my drink of choice. The hot dogs themselves were okay, certainly not "the best in NYC" or whatever slogan they use. They had appropriate snap from the skin, and were just salty enough to make me glad I had a drink. The toppings of sauerkraut and onions kind of destroyed it though. Mainly the onions. The additional amount of sauce slathered over top made the thing taste more like mustard and tabasco than meat, and if I were to ever order again in the future, I would pass on the onions. Eh, what can I say, I wasn't all that impressed. Then again I know many Papaya dog loyalists who will inevitably hate this post, I just don't see why.
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Crif Dogs and why I love my friends

I base 95% of my friendships on food. No, actually that's probably phrasing it incorrectly, but 95% of my friends accommodate to my quirks when it comes to food, whether it be going to new restaurants to try random things, or walking 20 blocks to get fried chicken with me at 3 am. Needless to say, I'm going to be sad that I'm moving away from such a great group of people next year. Why is the intro to this post so uber depressing? Well, on one occasion where I didn't go downtown with them, Wayne remembered that I had wanted to go to Crif Dog for more than a while, so I got a surprise phone call, and a delivery back to the dorm. About an hour later, my Tsunami dog (above) and an order of cheese tater tots arrived.



First off, I'd like to apologize for the photography. The 45 minute train ride back probably doesn't do anything to make the dogs look any more appetizing, and I'm pretty sure the sogginess that I portrayed is doing just wonders for their image. In any case, The Tsunami is described as "a house dog, bacon wrapped, with teriyaki, pineapple & green onions." While it truly looks nothing like the image on the website, it was as described. A nice and semi-crispy wiener wrapped in bacon, with a thick pineapple and teriyaki sauce. The combination of sweet and savory was balanced pretty well, with nothing coming through as overwhelming. A pleasant surprise, and something I'd definitely order again. Which... was not true for the chili dog. It wasn't mine, but I ended up with a bite of it anyway. Maybe it was a single hit or miss thing, but the chili was relatively pasty, with an overwhelming textural consistency equivalent to that of canned beans (at least to me). I'm not in love with beans (unless they're on top of ice and covered with condensed milk), so I didn't really enjoy this one. To each their own, I know for a fact that other people name this as their favorite. Meh.



Argh! Tater tots... with cheese. Disclaimer, I'm sure these are absolutely phenomenal when they first come out of the fryer. The time in transit however, didn't treat these kindly. The cheese ended up being a solid chunk of gelatinous blob, and the tots themselves were kind of mushy from the humidity. If I were at Crif Dog in person, I would probably complement my hot dog with a side order of these, but pass if you're not going to eat immediately.
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Love-hate relationship with Checkers

Yeah yeah, why the hell would I write about fast food in the US. Normal fast food. First off, there's nothing exciting that goes down around Columbia (although I was recently informed that there's an IHOP around here, and that I've been missing out on those all you can eat pancake deals), so when I realized Checkers opened here, I was like a kid in a candy store, I was ecstatic. Which brings me to point two, which is the superiority of Checkers to other food options around campus. I mean, sure I love M2M and Hamdel, and I probably would be much sadder if I didn't have Silvermoon or even Pinnacle around, but where else is there a double menu that features 2 apple pies for $1?

The above picture is actually 2x 'Big Buford' burgers ,which is really just a normal burger with 2 patties and 2 slices of American cheese. So that'd be 4 slices of cheese and 4 patties... all for $6. Did I mention they make a decent shake (in which they offer a banana flavor too!)? The shake is super thick, and the straws are ultra bendy, so there's some failure when you try to drink it, but minor gripe for something so cheap. Sorry, there's no real point to this post, except to make future students at Columbia realize they have a hidden gem of a fast food establishment on 125th. Oh, btw... they have Mr. Pibb. You know... crazy delicious?
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Random photos of food

Chalk this one up to poor documentation, or irresponsibility, but I don't actually remember the name of this place. I know an approximate location for this restaurant, it's near a relatively uninhabited section of 愛國東路 (Ai Guo East Road), and I can even picture the storefront. I can't for the life of me remember the name though... ugh. It's okay. I've been told by numerous people that they only visit to look at the pictures so it's no big loss (plus the people that gripe about not being able to visit any of these places anyway...). In any case, these dishes were cheap as sin... I think something like 70 NT (about $2). The only reason I walked in was because there was a sign outside saying that the daily special was chicken katsu. Go figure.



Let's see, the food came out ridiculously fast since I was the only customer there. It was... adequate? I mean, it was certainly better than I could do even with hours of preparation in the kitchen, so I guess it was better than that. The katsu was appropriately crispy on the outside, and piping hot on the inside, so it wasn't prepared earlier and simply reheated (which is incredible considering the amount of time I was waiting), and the beef yakiniku was excellently tender, although drowned by a cloyingly sweet sauce. All in all, it was good for the money spent, but let's just say I won't make an effort of it to figure out the specifics. To be honest, I'm just kind of OCD about having pictures that've been skipped over and not posted. Plus I really like pictures of fried chicken.
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