DATELINE: BALTIMORE, MD – BAD DECISIONS BAR IN FELLS POINT.

Rumblings from the interwebs abound regarding two solidly gentlemen who challenged one another to a chicken nugget eating contest featuring nuggets from Chick-Fil-A. The faceoff was to take place at the renowned interwebs bar Bad Decisions, 50 nuggets and 90 minutes to finish them. From the depths of Twitter he arose; @spamspam. With a bellowing tweet he scoffed at their challenge and exclaimed:

And so a third challenger was created. The scene was set by 7pm, all the players were in attendance, and a 200 nugget platter adorned the bar. 50 nuggets were placed in three baskets, and the clock began.

The air was thick with tension, meat sweats, and beer. The contenders casually ate their nuggets, seemingly without effort – at least, for the first few minutes.

…And a few minutes was all he needed. Spamuel the Great demolished his basket of nuggets within 8 minutes, swallowing the greasy chunks with a delicate grace and leisurely pace. 8 minutes. He was awarded the coveted Cow Crown, shocking his would-be opponents to their core. The remaining contenders continued their quest to finish the rest of their nuggets, with strain and effort, but alas over 45 minutes later the two resigned and left a dozen and seven (respectively) nuggets behind. Kudos to them for their effort, but the champion is born. Where does he go from here? Why, to Chick-Fil-A, of course.

Why? A new Chick-Fil-A location is opening in Hunt Valley next Thursday, and Spam is dead set on being one of the first 100 customers for the location. Why? Because the first 100 customers at any new Chick-Fil-A location receive FREE CHICK-FIL-A FOR A YEAR. He plans on camping out in front of the location next Wednesday starting at 5am, and plans to live tweet / blog about the endeavor (which we will also report on) as it occurs.  Why? Well, I have no idea but it’s crazy as hell and I love it. NUGGETS

I’m #justsaying, this bacon cupcake looks pretty gee dee awesome. Kudos to you, Cafe Latte’ Da!

One of the greatest things about Key West is the fact that, like Baltimore, it’s a seafood town. Except unlike Baltimore, the seafood literally flies out of the water onto your plate while cooking in midair. Granted, the eastern shore of our fair state is brimming with waterfront restaurants boasting off-the-boat cuisine, but it’s hard to rival that of a place completely stuffed with Gulf Shrimp, Mahi Mahi and blah blah blah seafood lingo. One such place is called the Shrimp Shack (6840 Front Street, Stock Island), a back-door restaurant sitting directly on top of a commercial fishing dock. I don’t know the kind of hyperbole appropriate for how fresh the seafood is at this place, but it literally comes off of a boat, into the facility, and is ready for you to eat. TAKE THAT PHILLIPS!!! YOUR INNER HARBOR BUFFET AIN’T GOT NOTHIN!!

Po Boys, Po Boys, Po Boys

Chances are pretty high that if you’re going to New Orleans and someone you know has already been there and you’re talking to them about New Orleans, they will say something to the effect of “OMG OMG G O JOMGOGMGOMG PO BOYS DDROOOOL.”  Sure enough, New Orleans is awash (hehehe) in Po Boys, their version of a Hoagie/Grinder/Sub/Whatever. From reading entirely too much on the matter, I came to find that the only functional difference between a Po Boy and any other sandwich/sub on Earth is the use of French bread – which is actually great, since the crust is nice and crisp while the inside is soft. Wonderful for sandwiches without a lot of runny toppings, but in the event that you throw on some gravy fries (as I did) onto your sandwich, you’re gonna end up with a really soggy mess on the bottom.

Case in point: the Ferdi. This rather famous sandwich prepared by Mother’s Restaurant comes on French bread with baked ham, roast beef, debris (in gravy), shredded cabbage, creole mustard and mayo. To be certain, it’s one of the best sandwiches ever and I’d eat an entire plate of debris by itself. But the gravy goes straight to the bottom of the bread and causes it to disintegrate, leaving you with a pile of stuff to eat.

Then again, if you’re like me you’ll eat the whole thing in 2 minutes flat and not have to worry about it. Yeaaaah buddy.

Furthermore, it also seems like the most popular thing to do for 99% of all restaurants serving Po Boys around town is to pile them to the ceiling with fried seafood. Fried oysters, fried shrimp, fried gator tails, fried catfish, fried crawdads, fried fries, it goes on like that for a while (but no fired clams, surprisingly!). It actually begs the question: Why doesn’t Baltimore do this? We’re pretty obsessed with seafood on the whole and I rarely see fried insert seafood here subs around town. Come to think of it, a lake trout Po Boy would be pretty awesome…

To the point, you can’t go anywhere in New Orleans without tripping over a Po Boy. They’re everywhere. Most places do a serviceable job of putting together a nice sandwich for you but real trick is finding the best ones – much like finding a decent deli pretty much anywhere, anymore. So if you go, try Domilese’s, Mother’s, or Sugar Shack. You won’t be disappointed!

…and for an honorable mention try Tomatillo’s for their “niño pobre,” which is basically just a wrap but they were pretty awesome folks and have live music (including a rockabilly version of “When The Saints go Marching In”) often times.

A week or so ago I had the pain/pleasure of spending some time in New Orleans during what must have been the coldest four day period in the history of New Orleans, with the exception of the last ice age (maybe). And since walking around the Garden District seemed less appealing in freezing rain, I ate. And ate and ate and ate. Here’s some of what I ate.

Breakfast in New Orleans

First and easiest of all, Cafe Du Monde. Every single tourist in the city can be found there every morning and it’s not hard to figure out why; they serve two things – coffee and doughnuts. I don’t know when the Cafe decided to start calling them beignets officially but I’m guessing it has something to do with the place being house within “The original French Market.” Regardless, I found photographic evidence that they did in fact used to just call them “Doughnuts.”

All this aside, realistically beignets are remarkably similar in every way imaginable to one food thing in particular: FUNNEL CAKE. They taste the exact same and have the exact same consistency. So from now on, I will refer to Cafe Du Monde as “That funnel cake place.” And so should you.

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Fortunately, if coffee and funnel cake isn’t your thing there are plenty of places to grab a full service breakfast in the Crescent City. My favorite place for a regular ol’ breakfast turned out to be Daisy Dukes, a 24/7 diner type place with a pretty awesome breakfast menu, including a cajun omelet (pictured, with sausage/onion/parsley/tomato/paprika/black pepper) with all the fixins for $8.95 – not too shabby.

And of course, the holy grail of all breakfast experiences in New Orleans is the vaunted Jazz Brunch. There are numerous, numerous places to enjoy a decent Sunday brunch with some hoppin’ jazz music, but after much deliberation I settled on a place called Buffa’s Lounge, a fairly low key locals bar with a Jazz Brunch featuring a special menu every week. The folks there are super friendly and make some fantastic home cooked meals. For more PR, check out their video for a bit of the experience!

So that’s some of what you can expect from breakfast in New Orleans. Stay tuned for part 2!!