Month: May 2020

Hiatus

By Eggware.XYZ

We had a ‘Funny’ post scheduled in advance for today, but it just feels crass right now. In light of recent events, we are taking a break from our regularly-scheduled comedic blogging this weekend, out of respect for our community and to get our thoughts in order.

We’re not a newspaper, so we’re not going to pretend we can do a professional write-up of this situation. To make a long and horrific story short, Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department murdered George Floyd, a Black man who had been detained for some alleged bullshit that certainly didn’t justify murder.

Our hearts go out to the family of George Floyd, and to all of those protesting his tragic killing at the hands of the Minneapolis police. We stand with the Minneapolis riots. We would even attend the protests in our area, but as two disabled people with no protective gear, we are honestly a liability. Last night we ran a charity stream for the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which we strongly recommend you donate to: nobody deserves to be imprisoned for doing the right thing, especially not at the height of a disease pandemic.

If you wish to help at home, please consider donating to either the fundraiser for the family of George Floyd, or to the Minnesota Freedom Fund to help bail protestors out of jail. But we also encourage you to look towards your own city, and ask yourself what you can do to contribute there. The murder of George Floyd is a tragedy, but just as tragic is the fact that police across the country freely murder countless innocent Black people every day. Your own home town is not immune to this fact, no matter where you are.

Eggware.XYZ will hopefully continue next week with no hiccups, but we honestly have no idea where things are going to be by then. We’ve committed to a Monday-Friday schedule to maintain some sort of consistency for our viewers during this pandemic, but… times are hard right now, and things can change overnight.

Rest in peace, Mr. Floyd. We can only hope from the bottom of our hearts that this will incite actual change, and that something like this will never have to happen again… but it’s going to take a lot of work to get there.

Eating at El Loro is great, even if you can’t eat AT El Loro

By Eggware.XYZ

We miss sitting down at a real restaurant. We don’t mind takeout, we love it, but sometimes we really do want a regular, sit-down experience. Don’t worry, we’re not one of those people who will start bullying restaurants to open back up – we know this lockdown is for a good reason – but it does make us sad. If we’re struggling with this, imagine how the restaurants themselves are handling it! The answer is, for the most part, “poorly.” Restaurants that simply do not work as take-out joints have been forced to transition, and it’s not going smoothly for most places. This can be a problem with multiple factors: the food isn’t suited for take-out, they don’t have any ecosystem in place for take-out or delivery, or the owners don’t want to work out the business plan for transition.

One restaurant we’ve been wanting to go to, El Loro in Bloomington, is a sit-down Mexican place that has made the transition to take out. Have they managed to crack the code? Hit the jump to find out.

Scott Ja-Mama’s packs big barbecue into a tiny package

By Eggware.XYZ

We discovered Scott Ja-Mama’s by complete chance. Driving down the road, as we are wont to do, we simply came to the intersection of Diamond Lake and Nicollet and were forced to stop at its red light. While waiting, Paula turned their head and said, “Now that looks like a hole in the wall!” There was the neon sign of Scott Ja-Mama’s, promising hot barbecue with a one-of-a-kind name. We had never before gotten so immediately excited over a restaurant we had seen on the street. It is our fervent belief that the smaller a restaurant is, the better its food is. And we’re talking about floor space, not just the amount of business it does. Scott Ja-Mama’s looked like it could hold barely five people, maybe seven if they were slim.

So, of course, we were instantly enamored and had to order from there soon. And two days later, we had put the order in. We were going to find out what Scott Ja-Mama’s was all about.

But what is Scott Ja-Mama’s all about? What even is it? Hit the jump to find out.

Why did Burger King bring back its spicy nuggets, here and now?

By Eggware.XYZ

Burger King brought its spicy nuggets back. You didn’t know they had left? You didn’t even know that Burger King even had spicy nuggets? We can’t blame you. Burger King introduced spicy nuggets back in 2017, shortly after Wendy’s discontinued their nuggets, in a naked cash-grab.

We’re not really in a position where going outside to grab a handful of chicken nuggets is something you can do in a lark anymore. Going out for Burger King is a thing now, like literally any reason you go outside. You gotta bring your mask, and your hand sanitizer, and carefully plan to make sure you don’t get too close to anybody else… it gets exhausting. You need a good reason if you’re going outside. Like, perhaps, Burger King offering those spicy nuggets at an unbelievably cheap price: eight for a dollar? We’ve had these nuggets before, but it had been years since we last tasted one… Well, grab your mask and hit the jump, what is there to lose?

Uptown’s Burger Jones meats its maker for good

By Eggware.XYZ

Horrible news, fans of hamburgers and weirdly charged environments: the Burger Jones in south Minneapolis has closed down permanently. Yes, due to the COVID-19 situation they’ve decided that keeping the second location open makes little economic sense and have chosen to turn in their badge. No more getting burgers forcefully crammed into your mouth on Lake Street, that’s for sure.

Parasole Restaurant Holdings, a major player in the Minneapolis-area restaurant scene and the owner of both Burger Jones restaurants, has been struggling with the repercussions of COVID-19 for a while now. Parasole had been looking to sell itself to an equity firm, but the deal had been walked back in the face of the pandemic.

We had liked the time we spent at the Burger Jones location in Burnsville, and are saddened to hear the other space is now gone. We were sincerely planning to go there someday, because it had a few features the Burnsville location did not – namely, a delicious sounding orange creamsicle milkshake we were very much looking forward to trying. But now, the coronavirus has taken another good thing away from us. That’s not even to mention all the poor workers who are now out of a job!

It’s weird, and honestly a little horrifying, to see the spread of COVID-19’s destruction well beyond just the immediate disease. It was hard enough at first to understand that these places would be closed, but the fact that plenty of them will never open again is frightful to comprehend. Burger Jones is just one restaurant out of many – we’ve come to understand there are plenty of places that we will never be able to go to, because they will be gone forever. Things are different now. We can only hope to give support to the community where we can.

But don’t despair, fans of enormous, greasy, juicy hamburgers. The Burger Jones in Burnsville is hopefully going to remain open as their flagship location. Who knows when it’ll open its doors back up, but you can get burgers to go and go Full Jones on them on your own time while social distancing. And if you’re really missing out on the atmosphere, why not check out our review of the place, right before all the shit hit the fan? Be warned, it is not for the kids!

Wendy’s gave us a GroupNug for free. Why?

By Eggware.XYZ

Hey, Wendy’s is giving away free nuggets! Did you know about this? I mean, it happened on April 24th, so if it’s not April 24th where you are right now, it’s too late. But we managed to get some nuggets, and they were totally free! We didn’t have to buy anything, we just drove right through the drive through and they gave it to us! Isn’t that crazy?

And you know what’s really crazy? If you live in an area where there are several Wendy’s within quick driving distance of each other – like we do – you can just drive to each one and get free nugs from all of them! We went to four Wendy’s and got a four pack from each!

If the multiplication chart I’ve hung onto from first grade can be trusted, that was sixteen nuggets for zero dollars! That’s enough nuggets for two people, for absolutely free. If this wasn’t free it probably would have cost over four dollars! Who has four dollars to spare in this economy? Do you have four dollars on you right now? Hit the jump to find out if you have four dollars on you right now.

Why we want(ed) you to help the Minnesota Zoo

By Eggware.XYZ

Disclaimer: This article was published on Patreon on May 20th, 5 days before the murder of George Floyd, during a time period where we were blogging about the COVID-19 pandemic specifically. Things have changed a lot in those 5 days, and this article is frankly no longer relevant.

We’re removing the paywall on this article so as to not charge people for a story that is so far removed from the environment that we are currently living in, but we are not publishing it on our social media because we don’t want to distract from the real issues at hand. Instead of the outdated advice in this article, please consider donating to one of the collectives listed on the Minnesota Freedom Fund website, or your local bail fund.

Pandemic Express

By Eggware.XYZ

Sometimes, you just gotta have some Panda Express. So we got some Panda.

In these coronavirus-riddled times, it’s not so easy to go out and get you some Panda Express, though. It takes significantly more foresight, planning, and preparation to go out and pick up some cheap hot food from a chain restaurant than it used to. Not a huge amount, of course, but you can’t just slap on some sweatpants and drive down the block like you could in the Old Days. It takes deliberation. It requires a sense of purpose.

That purpose, primarily, is having to sit down and fill out the order form on their website. This is a double edged sword, because it gives you virtually unlimited time to actually contemplate what you want to eat without any line pressure, but then you have to wrangle with the universally terrible online ordering form. God help you if you want to order from one of those delivery apps – those are even worse!

But once you’ve got your order set, it’s time to head outside. So slap those sweatpants on, find a clean face mask, and get your keys. Shit, where are your keys? You can’t hit the jump without your keys!

FOOD: Chipotle – The Chipotle Unexperience

By Eggware.XYZ

There is an amazing Mexican restaurant in our area that we only rarely go to. The Andale Taquiera is a hidden gem of the suburbs, a Guy Fieri-approved diner that serves some of the most amazing burritos and tacos you can get on this side of the Twin Cities, and certainly the best ones outside of the cities proper. And yet, we choose time and time to go to Chipotle down the street instead.

Why is this? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Everybody knows that Chipotle’s burritos are only just passable, and any independent Mexican restaurant worth their salt would blow them out of the water. We certainly are aware of this, but we kept choosing Chipotle time and time again. What kind of madness is this? What possible reason could someone choose to do this to themselves? Well, if you’re as perplexed at our behavior as we are, just click through and we’ll tell you all about the Chipotle experience.

The Lounge: April 2020

By Eggware.XYZ