Ash Austen: the Hippie Beast

Lets just put it this way: sometimes i like to go my own way (inspired by fleetwood mac). going your own way involves a level of risk and disappointment. for instance, when looking for places to eat sandwiches sometimes i go my own way, or in other words go out on a whim and find a place on my own with little or no advice or direction from anybody. sometimes it pays off. you find a gem that no one has ever heard of before. however, sadly, sometimes you get the steak truck.

The Steak Truck: Cheese Steak, visited 5/11/010
F.A.L.C.O.N. Rating
2/10 falcons (wouldnt it be cool if i had some kind of graphic here?)

the steak truck is nothing more than a truck that sells steak, and before i talk about their sandwich i want to applaud them for being honest and not embellishing what kind of a business they are running.
Ok, if you are looking for a good ash sandwich in new york then the steak truck is what you are looking for. when i took a bite into my philly cheese steak i was like, "this is some awesome ash! i love ash sandwiches!" the sandwich turned my tongue into a pompeii victim which, by the way, has always been a lunch goal of mine. and if you have similar goals then come on down to the steak truck and cross "eat a charcoal sandwich" off your list. for people who dont have goals that involve eating pumice, if you do go to the steak truck dont ask for the hot sauce. im surprised i didn't get a pulmonary infection from this sandwich.

Food Merchants: Turkey Sandwich, visited 5/14 /010
F.A.L.C.O.N. rating
3/10 falcons

I walk by this place every morning on my way to work. there is a sign outside that has a delicious pasta shown on it and it says "build your own pasta". the pasta in the picture looks like it has some garlic olive oil sauce, sun dried tomatoes, and in my minds eye i also remember there being something green in it like broccoli or peas. anyway, it looks delicious. so, one day i said to myself, "that pasta looks good. im gonna get a sandwich there." this brings me to a corollary i like to call "the chicken heart corollary". it goes something like this: just because the garlic sirloin at a place tastes like the cure for cancer that doesn't mean that the chicken heart is gonna taste like anything other than a gross chicken heart. in this case: just because the pasta bar looks good that doesn't mean that the sandwiches are going to be any good.

the turkey sandwich was not bad... it just wasn't good. it was like eating a water sandwich, or air sandwich, or something boring like that... it was like eating a pride and prejudice sandwich. it had its turkey, it had its tomato, it had its lettuce, it had its onion, it had its cheddar cheese (by the way, someone should tell new york that american cheese is not cheddar cheese), what it lacked was a john hancock... some kind of signature flavor that sets it apart from just a turkey sandwich. in the mathematics of sandwiches something special should happen. bread+ turkey+ condiments= something greater than bread+ turkey+ condiments. if you didn't understand that equation it means you have either never taken a math class before or you have never eaten a sandwich. at food merchants all you had was: ingredients+ bread= organized ingredients in bread. the sandwich did not taste as good as the pasta looked, but atleast it didn't taste like a lava rock.


Some Street Cart: Falafel "Sandwich", visited 5/17/010
F.A.L.C.O.N. Rating
5/10 falcons

first off, calling this a sandwich is debatable. personally i would call it some kind of pita or taco, but the vendor called it a sandwich so i decided to put it in the blog anyway. second off, i had never tried falafel before, nor did i even know what falafel was (talk about going your own way). so, for those of you who dont know what it is i did a lot of research on the subject and found this cool website called wikipedia. this is what wikipedia said about falafel, "Falafel ; Arabic: فلافل‎, Egyptian, and Sudanese Arabic: طعمية ta'miyya) is a fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans." and im totally cool with whatever chickpeas or fava beans are because they tasted pretty good. maybe its because they were fried?

im not kidding, the falafel was good. the vendor whipped me up this sandwich that had the falafels, cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions and some kind of yogurt sauce. the only real problem with this sandwich was the produce, it didnt seem very fresh.

after eating the falafel sandwich i immediately felt a close tie with the nature around me. i wanted to go to burning man or something. i wanted to protect a tree in danger like a mother bear protects her cubs. i immediately grew a beard and smelled like a woolly mammoth with body odor. it was happening... i was becoming some kind of radical vegan hippie . this is one of the side effects of eating and enjoying falafel. but, luckily, i realised just in time that i was eating from a street vendor and chances were he had fried the falafel in some kind of animal oil. upon realising this my mammoth stink was gone, my beard burned right off my face, and i reasoned that burning man is a dumb celebration after all. some tree in trouble will die alone tonight.