Eating my way through Indy...

I'm scared to find out what I weigh. I've been eating lots of deep-fried food, and I only made it to the gym twice since Saturday. After Easter, I'm going back on my diet, but I figure that I'm not going to be in Indy anytime soon, so I might as well take advantage of it.

I told myself that I would eat at places that I didn't have around Maryland. While my breakfasts have been at the hotel, and my lunches have been at national chains that are near me (Arbys, Quiznos, Chick-fil-a, and 5 guys, which I was surprised had made it this far west, since they started in DC), my dinners have all been at places that they don't have around Baltimore. I've taken pics of most of my meals, but I'll put them in a future post, since I don't have a card reader or usb cable with me.

Sunday's dinner was Steak N Shake, a midwestern chain. Bacon cheeseburgers, fries, vanilla shake. Tasty, although not the best I've had. The place is kind of weird - they have plates and service inside. I walked in, but when I saw this I walked out, because I wanted to eat in my hotel room in front of the TV, not sit alone at the restaurant, especially since I didn't have any reading material. Then I drove through the drive-thru and got my food.

Monday I got Chinese from Yen Ching, a local place. Lemon Chicken. I wasn't terribly impressed - the sauce didn't have a whole lot of flavor, and the chicken wasn't as crispy as other places.

Tuesday I went to White Castle. Two double cheeseburger sliders, fries. Decent, but nothing special. The appeal of White Castle is probably because it's open 24 hours - I could imagine it would be quite tasty if I was drunk and it was 3am.

Wednesday I actually made use of the oven in my hotel room - I got a take-and-bake Papa's special from Papa Murphy's. This place always gets mixed reactions online - some people like the pizza, others think it's silly to go to a fast food place to get food you have to take home and cook. The pizza was good - it did have a better crust and sauce than most other places. It also had a ton of toppings - if I'd known how much, I would have gotten cheese or pepperoni instead. The toppings were tasty, but there were so many that it made it hard to eat.

Tonight I went to Culvers and got a single mushroom swiss butterburger and an order of fried cheese curds. The burger was really good - tasted like something you would grill at home, if you were really good at grilling. The cheese curds were creepy - they had the texture of mozzarella sticks, but a different flavor. I went thru the drive-thru, which was interesting because you order, they give you a plastic number, and you pull up and they bring the food out to your car.

It's interesting that cultural critics often see fast-food as all the same, as something that's making the world too much alike - that you can travel anywhere and eat the same food. That's true - if I wanted mcdonalds or BK or a bunch of other places, they are around Indiana. But there are also a ton of places here that have a bunch of locations here, but none a day's drive away on the East Coast. There may be a lot of similarities in this country, but there are differences too.