The
good thing about our propensity for day drinking is that it makes us
many degrees more chipper and jolly for at least an hour or two.
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| Why, HELLO San Francisco! Lovely to See You This Fine Day! |
The bad thing about our propensity for day drinking is that it also makes us VERY TIRED.
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| Ugh, Miles to Go Eating Our Way Through This Building Before We Sleep |
Now,
in our normal lives, this is no problem whatsoever -- we go out for a
mid-day cocktail, stumble back home hours before sunset, and spend the
rest of the day in various states of "rest." When we are in San Francisco with an eighteen-page itinerary, however, this pattern is not so easy to maintain.
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| Too Tired to Find Out the Door... Which Is DIRECTLY Next to the "You Are Here" Star |
Therefore, by the time we reach the Ferry Building to consume our next Best Thing I Ever Ate dish, we are 10:00pm tired at 2:00
in the afternoon. We maneuver around the vendors without enthusiasm,
until we find the Hog Island Oyster Company, where we are looking to
consume Tyler Florence's favorite Kumamoto oysters.
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| Raise Your Hand If You Like Oysters. ::We Stand Like Statues:: |
The bad news that they're not serving those particular oysters. FAIL, Hog Island! Shame on you!
The good news is that we HATE oysters, so all is not lost.
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| Time to Bring On the Green Papaya... Though We're Not Sure How Much We Like That Either |
Continuing
our march down the Ferry Building, we pull up in front of Out the Door
and without so much as consulting the posted menu, order the green
papaya salad, as chosen by Chris Cosentino on the WITH FRUIT episode of
Best Thing I Ever Ate.
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| Chris Cosentino Has Not Been Batting 1,000 With Us on This Blog... Good Luck to You, Chris |
We take our rather giant plastic container of salad, place
ourselves at the two counter stools directly next to the cash register,
and open the top to see what our poor, tired, full selves are up
against.
And what we find is at least a full pound of green papaya.
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| Um, Is This Smattering to the Right Considered the Rest of the "Salad"? |
Now,
prior to this excursion, neither of us had ever tasted green papaya (or
more aptly, if we had tasted it, we didn't know what it was). In fact,
we only recognize it at all in this concoction because there is just SO
MUCH of it that it is the only possible ingredient that makes sense.
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| When in Doubt, Assume the Mound of String Is Green Papaya |
On top of the mountain of papaya are assorted toppings, most of
which we are incapable of identifying. Ginger leans in for a closer
look.
"Oh! It's tofu!" she exclaims.
Ginger points to some fried bits of white substance decorating
the top of the salad.
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| Oh, Well NOW This Salad Is Looking Up... NOT |
We pour on a smidgen of the provided dressing,
attempt to mix the salad up (no easy feat, what with the preponderance
of the stupid papaya), and lift mouthfuls up with our chopsticks.
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| What Is With the Proportions Being WAY OFF in This Town? |
"Tastes like soap," Ginger says nonchalantly, before, in proof
that her mother must have fed her Ivory bars as a child, she dives back in
for another bite.
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| One Bar of Soap a Day Keeps the Doctor Away |
Vodka is decidedly less open toward the
salad, grimacing as she places her chopsticks back in the container.
Not only is the green papaya itself overwhelming everything else, but it's not even something that tastes good. We were expecting
something sweeter -- FRUITIER, if you will -- and this is just, well,
reminiscent of something you'd find in your shower.
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| If We Put the Lid Back on This Thing, Can We Return It? |
After a few more bites, Ginger pipes up with, "I only
like the toppings." She carefully attempts to pick out a shaving of
carrot, and then clumsily tries to use her chopsticks to chase down
the peanut grounds which are uncontaminated by the papaya.
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| Might You Have Anything On Your Menu That Doesn't Taste Like a Used Washcloth? |
"I
don't even like them," Vodka says, spitting out a piece of fried tofu,
as if to hammer home her point. To Vodka, everything in this salad
tastes like one of two things: nothing, or horrible. Ginger is slightly
less hostile, which is the only reason we have
deigned to give it 2 stars instead of 1. But Vodka pretty much
correctly sums up our experience at Out the Door with the following
phrase: "There's not a hot chance in hell I'd go near this again."
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| So In Sum, We Ate About 1/50 of Our Papaya Serving |
As we pack up the three-quarters remainder of our salad,
including an almost full container of dressing (which, to be fair, could
be good on other things. But NOT on this green papaya junk), a mother
approaches the cash register with her multitude of children and starts
ordering items willy-nilly. As we stand to leave, she points at our
salad and asks what it is, the subtext being that she's about to order
it for herself.
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| RUN, Lady! Save Yourself! |
"It's not good," Vodka says without actually providing an
answer. And if nothing else, at least we are saving San Francisco
citizens from the horrors of this faulty salad, one nasty green papaya
at a time.
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