Sweet Baby Rays is the best, guys!
I don’t quite hate ketchup as much as @CraigM but I’ve taken a real liking to sriracha ketchup lately. Oops, wrong thread!
One thing that’s quite common for you guys but really rare for me is Pepperoni. Since I’m muslim and avoid pork, I only get to eat Pepperoni when it’s Turkey Pepperoni that I get from the grocery store and put on store-bought pizza to be heated in the oven. Man, it’s such a different topping compared to all the others. Maybe it’s because I have it so rarely, but I really love it. When I have it once every decade or so, it’s exquisite.
That’s got to be tough in this country’s chain restaurants, especially in KC if I recall correctly.
Well, that can save damn near any meal.
Seeing as how they’re the best goddamned chips on earth, yes, yes it can.
It’s actually not so bad. Mostly KC is beef-obsessed, which is fine by me. Of course, my wife hates it because she wants me to avoid all red meat. But hey, every once in a while, I have access to some really tasty beef here in the city. I was very skeptical of BBQ in general, since most BBQ I’d had prior to this just tented to be sweet, and adding that much sugar just drowns out most other tastes for me. But the BBQ here in KC at places like Oklahoma Joe’s (now called Joe’s KC) only has a really tiny hint of sweetness, and really puts the emphasis on bringing out the flavor of the beef. It’s great stuff.
I’ve seen Zapps around, but I never know what to do with them. The flavors don’t make sense, I swear when I walk by the stand in the store I see Possum Smell, Voodoo Hoodoo Magic, Sea Salt and Jazz Man, Sriracha and Pain, Alligator Potator Vinegar, and Creole Casserole… So I just walk on by. Because I want to know what the hell I’m getting not a reminder of days in the French quarter.
:P
Cajun Crawtaters are mildly spicy with a “zesty blend” maybe a little reminiscent of Old Bay or, more realistically, stuff like Tony Chachere’s. Very faint sweetness in the background.
Hot’n’Hotter Jalapeno is mostly just straight vinegar-tinged spiciness without a ton of complexity.
Cajun Dill Gator-Tators are similar to salt-n-vinegar, but with some dill pickle flavors. They might also be a little spicy?
The Mesquite BBQ, Salt n Vinegar, and Sour Cream n Onion are all pretty self-explanatory, I think :)
Voodoo is basically every single flavoring they make dumped into a single chip. It’s, uh, intense. The salt and vinegar flavor dominates.
But of course why am I even trying. Because of course, there’s a SeriousEats article for that:
Hey won’t you look at that, they really do have an article for everything.
Thanks
They introduce limited time flavors constantly, mind you. Also, I’ve only tried Voodoo once but man I need more of those. (Not to say I’ve had Zapp’s all that much - they’re not carried locally and while you can buy them online from their partner retailer it’s kind of expensive for something I really shouldn’t be eating.)
Woah - I always thought that place was a local thing. Got to go there on a Boy Scout trip once and make our own pizza which was fun for our age.
EDIT: Sorry for talking about pizza in this here pizza thread about BBQ and hotdogs.
We had Shakey’s in St. Louis. It was pretty awesome. I can’t really judge the pizza because I was just a kid, but I loved going there.
I remember near the end before it closed they had an all-you-could-eat lunch that also included fried chicken. Then it was gone. I guess the early incarnation of Pizza Hut killed it. I don’t remember a lot of other competition. Dominoes wasn’t around yet.
Does anyone else remember the salad bar at Pizza Hut in like the late 80’s / early 90’s? Because I swear to god it was like the best salad bar ever. It wasn’t huge or amazing in any obvious way, they just had the right combination of stuff to make a really good salad that went really well with their pizza :)
Not only do I remember that, I remember when the pizza bar at Pizza Hut was the bomb. It was an idea before its time to be honest. The whole family eating out and enjoying themselves. Now we’re ruined with better pizza. :)
My favorite Bay Area pizza joint growing up was Frankie Johnnie and Luigi, Too! I guess they’ve sort of become a chain now (uh, 4 locations). Haven’t been there in years and was a tad disappointed in the ultra “Tina’s Too Too Much”:
Nothing wrong with salami, pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, onion, bell pepper & linguica - but it used to also have big thick slices of mortadella and thin slices of hot capicola.
More along the chain line (but still regional) - we were way more likely to wind up at a Round Table, where linguica was king. I was horrified when I left California and discovered that pretty much the entire rest of the country had never even heard the word ‘linguica’. My first answer to “what is it?” was “it’s what you put on pizza, dummy”. Oh well.
I was equally mortified to discover that the rest of the country considers ground beef to be an acceptable pizza topping. Ugh.
Round Table is no stranger to me and I am not famliar with that sausage, had to google it. Sounds good, but maybe it’s just a northern california thing, or I missed it on the menu.
I love linguica but had never, ever, heard of it going on pizza. Definitely a regional thing. Maybe a large portugese population in that area.
I had to wait for the internet and then wikipedia to get themselves invented before I learned the weirdly specific list of parts of the country where linguica is common.
I just went to Round Table’s web site and picked a random city in Washington (Puyallup), and you can get linguica there.
There’s a huge Portugese population around Cape Cod. I wonder if they put linguica on pizza up there? I know they make an amazing kale soup out of it.