Touring these days, for a band that’s not U2, is more or less a constant battle against the scent of people who haven’t showered in weeks, rapidly encroaching facial hair, diffident or non-existent audiences, and wracking doubt as to where the next tank of gas is going to come from. One thing that’s always made it nearly worthwhile for me, though, is getting to eat food at lots of different places across the country. Between three national tours (often accompanied by our good friends, rock and roll powerhouse New MaximumDonkey) and a number of smaller west-coast tours, we in Get Set Go have pretty much nailed down our favorite places to eat in most of the cities into which we roll, smelly, sleep-deprived, and unshaven. I will make the caveat that I am by no means any kind of food critic—in fact, thousands upon thousands of cigarettes have basically turned my palate into an ashtray. But it’s still an ashtray that likes Philly Cheesesteaks, and often I’m able to gauge whether something is tasty by how unhealthy it is. If I was the kind of guy who made maps, I’d make a map of America with these restaurants marked on it, but what the hell…nobody needs maps anymore, what with the internet and all. Oh, one last thing: for a nanosecond I considered putting links to these restaurants’ entries on yelp.com, but I don’t like most of the people who post comments on yelp.com. As with any other place on the internet where groups of people are asked to provide an opinion, around 85% of people posting on Yelp are an annoying mess of execrable grammar and noisy self-righteousness. Those are attributes that should be the exclusive domain of people who have their very own weekly columns.
San Francisco: House of Nanking
This Chinese restaurant was brought to our attention by our bassist, Colin. The downside to this place is the parking, which should come as no surprise, since it’s in San Francisco (city motto: Hope You Like Putting Change into Parking Meters Every Fifteen Minutes! Sucker!). But don’t worry about that now.
They have a menu, but that’s for the proles and tourists. If you really know what you’re doing, you just tell the server how many people are in your party, and specify any dietary restrictions (for example, Dylan from New MaximumDonkey revealed to us that he’s on some sort of bizarre space-diet where all he eats is vegetables, or something. Disturbing!) and then they start bringing you food, and they stop when they think you’ve had enough. It’s all pretty delicious. I don’t like calamari, as a rule, but they somehow made it good here!
Somebody said the secret ingredient was something called “vinegar.” I don’t know where it comes from, but it seems to have the power to turn a disgusting batch of rubber tentacles and sea-monster torsos into edible (even tasty!) food.
I brought a girlfriend to House of Nanking to eat once, and she said she’d “never doubt [me] again.” We broke up a month or two after that, but as far as I know, she never doubted me about anything food-related again.
Portland, Oregon: Voodoo Doughnut
(http://voodoodoughnut.com)
Yup, donuts, although they’ve gone for the more archaic spelling “doughnuts.” We found this place on our first west coast tour—it was located right next door to the place we were playing. The show sucked ass; there had been some sort of set-time fuckup by the venue, and we played to two people. The venue has since become some sort of remnant-from-Times-Square-circa-1973 porn theater (theatre?). Serves ‘em right. But though that show was awful, the majesty of Voodoo Doughnut redeemed the trip. I recommend the Mango Tango (though the size of a normal donut, it weighs about 20 pounds, through a miracle of donut-physics, and contains enough mango filling to choke…I dunno, something previously thought to be unchokeable. Maybe a giraffe). I equally recommend the apple fritter, or the bacon maple bar (That’s right! Bacon and donuts, together at last!). I’m not sure if they do this anymore, but you used to be able to get a plaster bucket filled with day-old donuts for $5. Which usually takes a touring band upwards of ten minutes to eat.
Seattle: Dick’s
(http://www.ddir.com/Dicks_Drive_In_Restaurants)
Most people’s first exposure to this Seattle staple is its appearance in Sir Mix-a-Lot’s seminal “Posse on Broadway,” viz.: “Dick’s is the place where the cool hang out.” Think of Dick’s as Seattle’s version of In ‘n’ Out. The menu consists of: 1) burger, with or without cheese, 2) French-fried potatoes, and 3) milkshake. I have no idea what vegetable aficionado Dylan ate while we were here. Is “milkshake” a vegetable?
The hamburgers themselves are delicious, because they’re horrible for your general health and well-being. They have some sort of mayonnaise stuff on them and cost about thirty cents. Seriously, these are Depression-era prices, which is good for a bunch of guys driving around the country in a van that only gets four miles per gallon of gasoline.
The other, much more important thing about Dick’s is the infinitely deep well of phallus jokes one can make about the restaurant. Don’t try to tell me you weren’t thinking about it as soon as you saw the name. Give in and try it out: “Do you like Dick’s?” “ I could really eat some Dick’s right now.” “Man, I can’t wait to get some Dick’s in my mouth.” And so on, ad infinitum. The great thing about this joke and its endless variants is that it never gets old! Really! We’ve been to Seattle on tour maybe six or seven times, and that well never runs dry! It’s like the big orange-and-yellow sign has the power to turn anyone who sees it into a fourth-grader on a Pixie Stix high in health class.
Next week: the food-related exploits of Get Set Go and New MaximumDonkey continue, as our heroes leave the northwest to eat food in Denver! Or New York! Or the south! Or wherever else I can remember the names of some restaurants! Be sure to catch the next gripping chapter in this thrilling and hard-hitting expose.
