Review: Quesada Mexican Grill

Tonight's spot on Greg (GRGILL), Rob (Bobby B) (note: once I have a nickname for you I'll only ever call you that for the rest of your life) and mine culinary adventures is Quesada Mexican Grill located at Wellington and Commissioners. This is the 6th spot we've been to, and like the others that preceded, it was very good. Working in retail, our days off are all over the place and they haven't lined up recently, so tonight it was a spur of the moment decision to go after work, and I'm glad we did. GRGILL was kind enough to wait around an hour for me to finish after his own shift!

This brick is my Big Ass Burrito. In the background was my Jarrito's Mexican Soda, Pineapple flavour...that alone was worth the price of admission. The way it works is you line up, pick either taco, burrito or quesadilla (Napoleon! Make yerself a dang kess-a-dilla). Then you pick your meat, I was flip flopping between Spicy Chipotle Chicken and Ancho Seasoned Pork, I decided to go for the pork. You move down stations where they load it with toppings, mine had Rice and Beans, Salsa Verde, Jalapenos, Corn, Onion, Guacamole, Cheese, Lettuce, Sour Cream and this Chiptole Sauce. I didn't put any cilantro on it, I'm still not sure about cilantro, sometimes I like it sometimes I hate it, I really didn't want to risk it.

Here's a lovely shot of me taken by my pal GRGILL enjoying my Big Ass Burrito. (aside: Holy shit I'm bald, I mean I know I'm bald but I never fully notice until I see a picture of myself) The burrito and my fancy Mexican pop set me back $15. A little steep, but it was a ton of food, I finished it, but was bursting at the seems when it was all done...that Big Ass Burrito will make for a Big Ass Dump later tonight. Next time I go I am going to go with 3 or 4 small tacos with different flavours (GRGILLS fish taco looked amazing) as opposed to 1 Big Ass Burrito.

One last shot, apparently this place is a chain, so check it out if there is one in your neck of the woods. It looks like the next place we're going to is an all you can eat sushi place called 168 Sushi...see I'm classy I can eat Sushi, I'm not all fast food and poop jokes.

That's all for me tonight, two posts in two days! You guys are lucky! In the mean time give me a follow on twitter @didhenley I've got a few loyal followers but I feel most of my measly 118 followers are ad-bots.

Shit Bandits

Today's post is a quick little rant about the people I hate the most in the world: Shit Bandits. What's a Shit Bandit you ask? (besides being the scum of the Earth). Shit Bandits are people who go take a dump in a public washroom and don't flush the toilet. What the fuck is wrong with these people?? Were they raised by wolves? How can you be that god damned inconsiderate. This really sets me off at work, because there is nothing better than slipping out for a shitbreak and getting paid to poop. There is only one stall in the washroom so you have no other choice than to flush somebody elses mess. This happens far to often, and you can't even enjoy your poo. It was even worse when I worked at the Delta, and the washroom was reserved for staff only, how could you do that to your fellow co-workers?? I actually put up a sign admonishing the shit bandit, and thankfully after that it stopped. I assume these shit bandits flush the toilet at home, or are these people like the ones on Hoarders that just let it pile up. It takes two seconds to flush your shit, you've done it a million times in your life, do it in a public washroom for Christs sake. Even if you're one of these wacky germophobes you can wash your hands immediately after you touch the flusher. Anyone who is caught being a shit bandit should be either thrown in jail or forced to stand on a busy street corner ringing a bell with a big placard saying "I force others to flush my turds" and be exposed for the dirtbags that they are.

The Good Ol' Hockey Game

The NHL starts an abbreviated 48 game season on Saturday, while I am glad the NHL is back, I really didn't miss it all that much. Perhaps it's because my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs have done sweet fuck all since, gulp, 2004. I also think that the hockey coverage in this country borders on the insane. I'm not even sure why TSN calls it's flag-ship program SportsCentre when it's really just the early edition of That's Hockey, that jerk Darren Dreger blocked me on Twitter too for no apparent reason. At least now they are talking about actual hockey and not that god-forsaken seemingly never ending lock-out. Showing that weasel Gary Bettman walking through a revolving door over and over really got tiresome. I really am not as passionate about hockey as I was in High School and University, but that being said I still enjoy watching the games, and if the Leafs can finally manage to get their shit together the passion will ignite again, and I'll be glued to TSN's 24/7 Hockey coverage.

I am your typical long-suffering Leafs fan. I've been a fan my whole life, living through the ups and the mostly downs. Speaking of Downs, many people have questioned my mental capacity over my support of them, especially recently. Frankly I am sick of all the absolutely horrible jokes "it must be spring because the Leafs are out" and all those hilarious and original signs outside of bars saying "free beer during all Leaf playoff games". You guys are about as funny as Dustin "Screech" Diamond's stand-up comedy...seriously look it up on YouTube, the Holocaust gets more laughs. While I do think it will be hard-pressed for the Leafs to make the playoffs (again, ugh) I think there is some good pieces in place for the future. If they get some consistent goaltending, this could be the year to see a Leafs playoff game in HD, finally. I picked Phil Kessel in the first round of my fantasy hockey pool (7th overall). I don't think I am as insane as everyone thinks I am for it. I'll go ahead and say the Leafs come in 8th, make the playoffs, only to lose to the NY Rangers in the 1st Round.

As much as I love the Leafs, I think I hate the Ottawa Senators just as much, what an abortion of a franchise. Come playoff time all the idiot fairweather fans tell me "well you gotta cheer for the Canadian teams" Fuck you. I wouldn't cheer for the Ottawa Senators if they were playing Al-Qaeda. I hate the Montreal Canadiens a lot too, the whole Quebec thing mainly, but the Leafs and Habs rivalry is really from a bygone day, and the Leafs-Sens playoff battles from the early-2000's are still fresh in my mind (which by the way the Leafs won all of). My room-mate from Saugeen-Maitland Hall, and throughout my remaining years at UWO, Matt "Loguezilla" Logue is a die-hard Sens fan. The first thing I found out about him he was from Burlington (ew) and the second was that he was a Sens fan (puke!). Surprisingly we still remain friends to this day, despite me taking almost every opportunity to harass him about the shitty Sens, he did block me on Facebook for about 8 months though, mostly because I still make fun of him for Cory Clouston. In conclusion, fuck the Sens, the Habs and any team that isn't the Leafs.

Fucking Spartacat. Let me tell you a story about this piece of shit. The year was 2007, me and my good friend Mikey "Concussion" Reed went up to Ottawa to celebrate our other good friend Jonny's 25th birthday party. We had tickets to the Penguins-Senators game, a marquee match up to say the least, and I dropped $90 on a ticket. The drive up was a bit of a shit show, it was a blustery late November day, and eastern Ontario was experiencing their first snow storm of the season. Pretty much from Picton, through Kingston all the way to Ottawa traffic was slowed to a crawl, and the visibility was piss-poor. There was jack-knifed trucks on the highway, I seriously thought I was going to die...I guess it didn't help that I smoked a joint during this whole experience. We arrived to Ottawa a couple of hours later than we wanted to. If you know anything about Jonny Clare is that he likes to party, and he does things like this the right way. He had rented a limo to take us from his house in Greely to the Corel Centre in Kanata. Mikey and I hadn't had a bite to eat since the morning as we were too busy focused on not dieing. So we get in the limo with the Chris "The Chit-Bang" Chitty, his brother Phil and their cousin Willie. All these guys are certified lunatics, I might focus an article on them at a later date. Anyways, in this limo there was a 60 ounce bottle of Grey Goose vodka. This bottle was gone by the time we reached the arena, I must've had 8 or 9 drinks on an empty stomach. Needless to say we were all shit-faced drunk, I crushed another couple of beers once we got into the stadium. Things are a little blurry at this point, I am sure we were all obnoxious drunk assholes. That smug bastard Spartacat sauntered into our section like he fucking owned the place, high-fiving kids, doing all the dumb shit mascots do. This is when Jonny piped up "Hey Spartacat you're a fucking loser!!". Spartacat came over and proceeded to spray Jonny in the face with silly string, Jonny, being the reasonable guy he is threw his full beer at him. Spartacat called over his hired goons, and they kicked him out. Chitty leaned over to us and said "I'm going to go try and smooth things out", his brother Phil correctly said "there is no way Chris is going to smooth things out", turns out he threw his full beer at a security guard and he was kicked out. Once we got the word, we all got up and left. Keep in mind folks this is all about 10 minutes into the 1st period. The game ended up being a dandy, Pittsburgh won 6-5 in a shoot-out.. We had to call the limo back and head back into town where we partied the night away. I'm still bitter at Spartacat for starting shit even after all these years. The picture above is one Loguezilla got for me, he said Spartacat was trying to mend fences, but I don't know if I'm ready to forgive and forget.

Anyways that's all I have for tonight. I went to Hot Italian Sandwiches the other day with the boys, and it was pretty damned good, but not enough for a full on blog review. The next stop is going to be a new Mexican place called Quesada, which I am pretty pumped for. That will warrant a full post!!

In the meantime gang, enjoy the NHL season, and remember pitchers and catchers report in a month. Follow me on twitter! @didhenley

Boss Hog's Smokin' Chophouse

Wow. This was the best food I have eaten in a long time. Me and a couple of guys from work have started a Wednesday tradition where we go out and eat somewhere different. Five Guys Burgers and Fries was the first spot, then we went to Mary Brown's, followed by The Early Bird. The next stop on our tour was set to be Boss Hog's, but the busy holiday season derailed that.  We've been talking about it for a couple of weeks now, getting each other hyped up, simply saying "B. Hog's" when we passed each other at work, texting each other about Pulled Pork, the whole 9. Needless to say it lived up to our lofty standards. Don't get me wrong the meals we had at those other spots were really good, but Boss Hog's was a cut above.

This was my buddy Greg aka GRGILL's app, stuffed corn bread. He was nice enough to let me to have a bite and to pretty much lick up the plate. This was amazing, it was cornbread with bacon, corn and smothered in some manner of nacho cheese sauce. Amazing! I'll have to order my own next time I go, and believe you me there will be a next time.

This was my meal. 1/3 of a rack of ribs, a 1/2 pound of pulled pork, a side of Mac & Cheese and a piece of cornbread. Everything about this was amazing. The ribs fell off the bones and the pulled pork was like butter. I decided to kick my Mac & Cheese up a notch.

I mixed in my pulled pork with my Mac & Cheese and gave it a few dashes of Hot Sauce (which by the way was pretty fucking spicy) The is was the highlight of my meal. I could have eaten a whole plate of just that. Me and that troublemaker Bobby B split another half rack of ribs, which I didn't even touch, but I have with me as left-overs. There is no doubt in my mind that I will be back.

We didn't really discuss what our next stop is going to be. I suggested Hot Italian Sandwiches of York St. I've been there before and it is very, very good. Wherever we go next I'll let you, my 4 readers of this blog know how it went.

Review: Oxford and Hyde Park Popeye's

It was a bleary 4/20 when I was on the trusty 19 Oakridge on the way to work. Next to a vacant lot at the corner of Oxford and Hyde Park there was a sign announcing that a Popeye's was coming soon. I proclaimed on Facebook that this was a 4/20 miracle! Well this sign sat next to a vacant concrete block for months...Months! before there was any sign of construction, finally this fall construction started, and the grand opening was right before Christmas. I finally went today, and I hate to say this but it was kind of "meh"

Things started off kind of sour when they wouldn't accept my coupon. Fair enough the coupon said it was only good at the other locations in the city and not this one. I wasn't about to make a stink about it because that aint my style. Perhaps it was the time of day I went (2:30 in the afternoon), maybe it was because I wasn't stoned, but I wasn't too impressed. I ordered my usual, 4 piece Spicy with Fries. My main beef was everything I ordered had clearly been sitting under the heat lamp since the lunch hour rush. One of my pieces of chicken had some kind of tumour on it, that being said I still ate it all. I'm willing to give this location another chance, because it's still Popeye's and it's still delicious. This location is the #2 location in town. The best being Wellington and Southdale, the worst being Dundas and Clarke in shitty east London. You have to strap on a bullet proof vest and take a 2 Dundas bus (ew) to Argyle Mall (double ew), they gave me mild instead of Spicy, which was a bit of a piss off.

I'm going to Boss Hog's Smokin' Chop House with some boys from work tomorrow, so I will post a review on that. I'm drinking tonight so I might post later on, my twitter feed should be interesting too, follow me @didhenley

Rogers Ginger vs. Canadian Tire Guy

I watch a lot of TV, and as a result a lot of commercials. I don't hate commercials as much as my pal Corey @SuishamFan but, commercials earn the vast majority of my scorn. The top two worst Canadian TV commercial actors are the Rogers Ginger and the Canadian Tire Guy.

Rogers Ginge

This guy is an asshole to say the least. He is a smug, rich, holier than thou piece of shit. He gets a notification when his dog-walker shows up, fuck you with your dog-walkers. The absolute low-point of Rogers Ginger commercials is when he ran around the house saying, Play HERE! STOP HERE! Then lets out a "This is AWESOME!" Just thinking about that commercial makes me cringe, and it was on all the bloody time! Next time he demands to get a movie started his long-suffering wife should throw lawn darts at him instead of popcorn. All that being said he is not the worst TV Commercial Dad of all time, that title belongs to...

                                                        This Asshole


The Ned Flanders of Home Improvement polluted Canadian airwaves for 8 years...8 years!! He always stuck his nose into other peoples business, pimping the latest Motomaster Robo-Grip Pliers or Simoniz Pressure Washer, with the same smug sense of superiority which made him so smackable. "You can take this up to the cottage and wash your boat", go fuck yourself Canadian Tire Guy, not all of us have the coin to buy every single new gadget from Canadian Tire to fix up our cottages and boats. I actually ran into the actor who played him, it was 2002 and I was working the entrance kiosk at the Royal Botanical Gardens. He came up to my booth to show me his Season Pass, I let him through and about two seconds after that I recognized him as the Canadian Tire guy, I left my booth to double check and it was! I kind of wanted to say some smarmy comment, but I am sure he took enough shit.

There is many other horrible commercials out there that deserve our scorn, but there is plenty of time to discuss those in future posts. In the meantime you can hit me up on Twitter @didhenley I'd like to hear some feedback, who do you hate more the Rogers Ginge or the Canadian Tire Guy??

Humour

I'd like to think that one of my best qualities is my sense of humour.  High Brow or Low Brow, most things make me laugh.  My all time favourite example of low-brown humour is @the_ironsheik especially when he incorporates old wrestlers from the 80's and 90's in his rants.  Rumour has it that it's not actually The Sheik who writes these tweets, even if it isn't, it is still hilarious.  Click the link bellow for one of the funniest twitter conversations I have ever seen.

The Sheik vs. Michael Ian Black

I told you it was low brow...but I still cried myself laughing, "You were born from kamala ass" is my favourite part

McDonald's Power Rankings - London, Ontario edition

I love McDonald's. I have since I was a kid, I've seen Super Size Me, I've seen what all the negative fucks say about the "calories" and "fat", and "if you eat it too much you'll die" but I don't care. I'd say a good 85% of the time I get the exact same thing a Big Mac combo with a Sprite. It's been my go-to McD's choice since Grade 5. I'll switch and get the other sandwiches from time to time, never the Filet-O-Fish though, Fuck the Filet-o Fish. Two of my favourite follows on Twitter @Archizuber and @ryantologist frequently talk about the Power Rankings of McDonald's in Toronto, which got me thinking about how I'd rate the McDonald's here in London. Me and Killer @ryanbourdeau thought once about visiting every McDonald's in town to write a review, but we never got around to it, and he has moved to Kingston. We did make it to a few though. Without further ado here is my current Top 3 and Bottom 3 of McDonald's in London

 TOP 3

1. Wonderland & Oxford

 This location was actually the first McDonald's in Canada. The actual location looks like one from the 60's and there is some cool memorabilia, pictures and shit inside this location. The line-up situation was well managed, I've only been to this location a few times, but it's always been a good experience.


2. Wharncliffe & Baseline

When I came and visited family in London growing up we always went to this McDonald's so this is a bit of a nostalgia vote. McDonald's uses London as a test market for new menu items. I had a McDonalds pizza (aside: McDonald's pizza was amazing) and a McFlurry here before it was available in all stores.

3. Wellington and Commissioners

This is the first time I've seen a fireplace in a McDonalds. Excellent sauce distribution on my Big Mac. I should go to this one more often.

BOTTOM 3

1. Dundas and Richmond

Worst McDonald's in all of Canada. Thankfully there is nothing wrong with the food, it has everything to do with the clientele. Every skid in London frequents Dundas and Richmond, standing around waiting for the bus hacking darts, pill sales going on the regular. It truly is the armpit of the city, however its where my bank is and it's been the most convenient McDonald's for me to go since I've lived downtown (going on 7 years!) There is always a line-up so you have to stand there in line judging everyone around you. People ask you for money, teen mothers are feeding their brood of most likely unfortunately named offspring. The one cashier that has been there forever truly hates her life. Her voice grizzled from years of smoking darts. I always have straight forward orders, but she has little patience for others who take forever then order dumb shit with modifiers. This location has a walk up window, so whenever someone presses that button it lets off a god-awful noise. Then you have to sit there and eat, you're satisfied with the food, but depressed about the atmosphere. I might actually write a full post one day about how much I hate the Dundas and Richmond McDonalds.

2. Wharncliffe and Oxford

It pains me to put this location on this list. It started with so much promise, I lived a 3 minute walk to this place when it opened just before my 2nd year at UWO. Me and my room-mates ate here all the time, this was in the days of the $3.99 meal of the day. Plus we had the Hockey Hero Sandwich at this location, that has kind of gone down as folklore to me and my old room-mates, we still talk about that night to this day. All that being said this location has gone to complete shit, extremely unorganized staff, the line up situation is horrific, it's kind of a free for all. I'll never, ever give staff at a fast food restaurant (or any waiter and a normal restaurant) shit for anything, even if they completely fuck up, but they suck big time here. They used to let you walk through the drive-thru back in the day, but they put the kybosh on that so that's more points deducted.

3. Hyde Park Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart McDonald's are the worst. a) you're in Wal-Mart that's depressing enough and b) they don't have a full menu there. I work right beside the massive Wal-Mart off Fanshawe Park road, so I go there all the time for lunch, so I have been to this location quite a bit. The pickle distribution on the Big Mac is awful, they have scaled back to 1 pickle, I have to ask those assholes for extra pickles each time. They never have ice cream available, I don't always get it but I do enjoy a McCone on a warm day, who doesn't? Plus when you use a coupon they always keep it, most McDonald's give it back to you so you can use it again.

Well that was a lot of words spilled out about McDonald's. This blog is a work in progress to say the least, hope you enjoyed the post, and I'll be posting more dumb shit soon.