I don't patronize chain restaurants as a rule. Aside from any touchy feely reasons, I live on the end of a very long corporate supply chain and thus would rather give my $4 sandwich money to the local bloke who bought haddock caught by boats I can see from my office window rather than industrially produced and stored beef or chicken from thousands of miles distant (Yummmmmm! Fresh...not).
This doesn't mean I can't admire Burger King's absoulutely stellar advertising efforts of late (they even have Arby's trying to copy them: cf the creepy beef hat erection ad the sandwich chain is running). Case in point:
Burger King 'Flame' Cologne for MenFor many English men out there, smelling all beefy used to mean emulating
this guy. No longer...
3 comments:
How many restaurants do you need for a chain? I remember an interesting quote from a recent review of that well known collection of Japanese restaurants - Wagammas which read...."If the three of us could live inside its clean, white, modernist walls we would."
Jeez- way to suck the fun out of a post about meat cologne. I see who this is- it's Roger Cook from The Cook Report masquerading as my brother.
I'll admit to the occasional inconsistent statement but I swear I didn't weld two Ford Escorts together and sell the resulting mess to a nun.
"I don't patronize chain restaurants as a rule": thus Wagamama, exception to the rule. Been there twice in 15 years, by the way (once in London, once in Boston).
Much with many of the other chains, there is much to admire and much to loathe about the company. Its just that when I can (and I know there's a local bias in the provisioning) I'll buy from the local spot. I live in a poor state and we need all the money we can get to say local and not be shipped off to Mickey D HQ in Chicago, etc. (Or indeed, Wagamama HQ in London). Besides, if the cook in front of you is shaping and cooking your burger in front of your eyes (as they do at the Owls Head General Store) wouldn't anyone prefer that to an insipid cake of frozen feedlot beef cooked and kept warm for half a day? Other people can do what they want: I'm just stating my personal preference. This isn't snobbery, or an elitist position, or some cloud cuckoo French anarchist farmer position- its to do with local economics and my own taste buds.
Besides, I'm not Naomi Klein or George Monibot by a long shot and this isn't my version of the little red book or other iron rules to live by, its a blog.
Or before you hit me with another perceived misstep, I should say "more of the money to stay locally" as obviously supply chains for even the smallest operators have global elements.
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