Journal mcgrew's Journal: Hungry enough to eat a horse shoe? 4
If you've ever visited Cartoon City, live here, or watch the Food Channel regularly, you've heard of them. If not I'm sure you haven't, because as far as I know it's a Springfield thing only -- eating horse shoes.
Yep, we eat horse shoes here. Honest. No, really.
In fact they just had a horse shoe cookoff at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel & Conference Center.
My favorite restaraunt, D'Arcy's Pint, won a couple of awards, but that's to be expected. They have the best food I've eaten since my grandma died. And their mashed potatos even beat Grandma's.
The last time I was there, I took Tami. I bought myself a D'Arcy's Pint St. Patrick's t-shirt, which Amy was wearing when she disappeared with my car last week. As Tami and I were were walking to the car, T-shirt and doggie bags in hand, Tami said "I think I just had a food orgasm!"
Did I mention that Tami's a cartoon who just got divorced from her alien husband?
The Food Channel (a nationwide network) was here filming at D'Arcy's a week or so ago.
We spotted Jimmy, AKA "Meat Man", a bartender from JW's going in as she made the remark. I used to be a regular at JW's, as it's staggering distance from my house, even closer than Felber's, but their beer is a quarter a mug more expensive, the chairs aren't as comfortable, and the bartenders (except for one of them) aren't as pretty. Not that Felber's bartenders are beauties; Vickie was likely very pretty in her youth, but she's even older than I am, and Ruthie is a big farm girl whose construction worker husband had her jailed for beating the shit out of him. Rachel, who's part owner and tends bar there as well, is pretty cute. Calm down, boys, she's married.
But I digress.
Amy had gone to her outpatient rehab wearing my D'Arcy's shirt, and they scolded her for it. WTF? D'Arcy's Pint isn't a bar, although they HAVE a bar. It's a restaraunt, the best in town in my opinion, and I guess in the opinion of many others' considering how long it usually takes to get a table. Actually more than a restaraunt, it's an authentic Irish pub. They have great car bombs, so I guess it's a terrorist pub.
Amy had relapsed, so they took her twenty dollar co-payment and kicked her out of rehab. She said four of the inpatients got kicked out because they found a single pill in their room and nobody would 'fess up to who it belonged to, so they kicked them all out. And people wonder why it's so hard to beat addictions. Boy, the rehab centers sure do a great job, don't they?
Budget cuts, they say. Amy said they're kicking people out of rehab for any excuse they can find. So I blame the rehab place for Amy's stealing my car; she'd relapsed, but was all ready to get back on the wagon when she'd gotten up that morning. Well, alcohol is no excuse for taking my car, but it's certainly a contributing factor.
I've never eaten a D'Arcy's horse shoe, because when I go there I usually have Irish fare. Most of their menu items are Irish foods, and it's the only place in town you can get corned beef and cabbage when it's not St. Patrick's day. You can get Corned Beef at any restaraunt in town on March 17th, but none are as good as D'Arcy's. Of course I haven't had horse shoes at every place in town, but my favorite is probably at the Track Shack, a bar on Laurel by (you guessed it) the 3rd street railroad track. Oddly, I haven't ever taken Tami, AKA "Train Bait", there.
Hell, I don't think I ever mentioned the "train bait" thing. If Tami's in your car, you're almost sure to get stopped by a train. I've gotten to the point that if she's in my car, I plan the trip to use viaducts to avoid railroad crossings.
Anyway, about the only restaraunts in Springfield that don't serve horse shoes are the chain fast food dumps. if you ever come to Springfield, don't order a horse shoe unless you weigh at least five hundred pounds. Get a pony shoe instead, because at most places the horse shoes are huge. One would probably feed a Nigerian family for a year.
They're often called "horse shoe sandwiches" even though they're not sandwiches. A horse or pony shoe is usually bread, topped with meat, french fries on top of the meat, and covered with melted cheese. Every restaraunt has its own way of making them; no two restaurants' shoes are alike. The meat is usually beef or pork, but I imagine if they ever get imported to France, they'll offer horse shoes with real horse meat. Or snails.
The French are even wierder than the people in Springfield.
pork t's (Score:1)
I remember when I couldn't find a fried pork tenderloin sandwich outside of that area. I used to live in J-ville.
I'd go to a hardees someplace else when I travelled and it wasn't on the menu.
My favorite pony-shoe in springfield was at the place of the wabash curve that was in the quonset hut. No clue what it's called these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, you haven't been around in a while, have you? There isn't any Wabash Curve any more! MacAurther goes straight across Wabash now, and they're doing construction now (finally) to extend it to Highway 72. They extended Stanford from 6th to Wabash, so Wabash becomes Stanford where it crosses MacArthur. Of course, people still refer to that neighborhood as the Wabash Curve, even though there's no curve any more.
Hardees is one of the fast food chains I was talking about where you can't get a shoe.
I think the
Re: (Score:1)
It's been 11 years since i worked down there. I'm in Normal now.
The company i worked for had a contract with IDPH and we were on the road almost everyday of the week. We had a list of all the daily specials in every town in Illinois. I wish I'd have kept it.
Anyway. We used to go to that place, Jims(? the race themed place) on 9th street. Shakey's buffet was always a go to place. The guy that ran that place was good.
Food was the only thing i miss about that job.
In France they're called... (Score:2)
In France they're called "American sandwhiches" or "American hamburgers"...
Totally blew me away when somebody was telling me about his ordering one while we were there, but I never did see any get served in any restaurants. Shame that.