Miscellaneous Review: The Costco Cafe Menu...

[WesDavid]

... All In One Sitting!

It would be one thing to try and review everything on the Costco menu.  It would be another thing altogether to try and review everything on the Costco menu at one time.  That extra ingredient?  You might have guessed it:  It's Awesome.  And here at S@10, we strive to provide Awesome on a daily basis, in the form of electrons beaming from your monitor into your brain.  Awesome is the S@10 commodity and we have it pouring out of all the non-gross orifices.

Beyond simply "trying" everything on the menu, the project was to actually eat everything on the menu.  I was joined by some of the guys to see if any of us could single-handedly achieve this monolith of culinary conquest.  I think the menu varies from locale to locale, but in our town, there are 7 items on the Costco food court menu:

 - Hot Dog
 - Pizza
 - Chicken Bake
 - Berry Smoothie
 - Soft serve sundae
 - Chicken Ceasar salad
 - Chocolate covered ice cream on a stick

On the drive over, I got a phone call from one of the brave Costconauts, who arrived before the rest of us.

"Bad news," he says.  "They added another item to the menu.  It's a turkey wrap."

"What the deuce is a turkey wrap?" I ask, even though the question is largely rhetorical.  I mean, really, it can't be that hard to imagine.  Costco isn't particularly renown for its innovations in cafe cuisine.  Normal people don't go to Costco to experience the bleeding edge of low-quality, high-volume outdoor dining.  It was predictable to learn that the turkey wrap was little more than a turkey sandwich wrapped in a tortilla-like substrate.  We have to add another item to the menu, which brings the item count up to 8.

Now that I had a full understanding of the enemy, I began the project so that I can share in the experience!  Join me, gentle reader, as we take the trip with me down the Cafe 150 menu!



Turkey wrap:  How hard is it to screw up a fricking turkey sandwich?  It's dry, it's horrifically boring and and it's big.  I have to choke it down with pure willpower, being that the swallow reflex decided it wasn't worth the bother.  While I'm tempted to drown it in mustard from the condiment station so I can lubricate it on its arduous journey down my wordhole, I want to save the few extra atoms of space in my stomach for everything else I have to eat today. 

I finished a few bites of it before I set it  aside to move on to something more interesting.

Verdict:  Sucked

Hot Dog: While the whole thing was bigger than I remembered, I was able to swallow it down with a big smile on my face.  It was truly something I enjoyed and would do again! Yum yum!  The hot dog was good.

^{Post edited by WesDavid on April 1, 2008***}

Verdict:  Didn't suck

Berry Smoothie: The berry smoothie was the sleeper hit of the experience, actually.  I drank it while engaging with my mortal enemy, the turkey wrap.  According to the online resources I've seen, the berry smoothie may have been the best overall food item on the menu, as far as health issues go.  In addition to providing me with something to assist in swallowing the turkey wrap, the smoothie provided me with some much needed fiber to assist the aforementioned turkey wrap in its journey to what is deservedly its final resting place.

Verdict:  Didn't suck

Chicken Bake: I don't know how they can pack 1000 calories of suck into such a self-enclosed bread capsule.  The ingredients make for a promising start:  chicken, bacon, some dressing and a cool-looking cheesy pretzely bread crust thing.  All that together has a promise for being something fantastic.

Unfortunately, the first clue about the impending disaster is the promotional picture thing they have of the item on the menu itself.  The chicken bake is cut in half, with tendrils of gross dripping out from sort of pastry coelum.  Seriously, when I looked at the thing, the image that came to mind was Bishop, after the queen alien had torn him apart.  Oh, hey, I have a picture of that:

You know what?  I think I would have rather eaten Bishop than finish the fricking chicken bake.

Verdict:  Totally sucked

The other half of the turkey wrap:  Oh shit, is this thing still here?  Hey, you know what?  It still sucks!

Verdict:  Still sucked

The other half of the chicken bake: Oh, man.  This isn't getting easier.  I'm going to go get the pizza and the salad.

Verdict:  Still totally sucked

Pizza: You know what, at this stage I'm really not very hungry, especially while waiting in line to get through the next wave of gluttony.  I was "responsible" for my son on this particular weekend, so I brought him along on this little Fiastco.  One of us was crying, miserable and wanted to go home.  The other was an 18 month old who would have been delighted to eat anything from the Costco menu.  I looked down at the pizza and at the boy who was busy making the "more" sign with his hands.  The solution seemed obvious enough.

Verdict:  He loved it!

Chicken Ceasar Salad: Damn, this thing is big.  Insofar as sheer quantity of volume is concerned, the salad has to be the heaviest hitter of the project, perhaps rivaled by the chicken bake.  Goddamn it, speaking of the chicken bake, that fucking thing is still on my plate back at my table.  I gave the salad to my mom, who was on-hand to drive me to the emergency room, as needed.

Verdict:  My mom thought it was fine

The other half of the chicken bake wrapped up inside the other half of the turkey wrap: Maybe I was delirious or overwhelmingly optimistic, but inspired by the success of the Whopper Pounder, I thought that perhaps the whole would somehow be better than the sum of the parts.  Perhaps there would be some sort of heretofore unknown majesty of synergy, where two abominations combine, with their gross properties somehow cancelling each other out to yield some sort of culinary harmony, achieved only through an enlightened sta--

Verdict: A white hole of suck, from which suck bursts forth in all directions at the speed of light

Soft serve sundae: Surprisingly, I had saved enough room for the sundae, despite eating what I had up to this point.  I planned to take my time and enjoy what I could of the ice cream, in an attempt to recover from the trauma of the rest of the afternoon.  I inadvertently ordered the "sundae" which came with a strawberry topping.  It wasn't really what I wanted, but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  It was kind of an icing on the cake, although, more literally, it was the topping on the ice cream.

Incidentally, I let the thing melt on the drive home.  By the time I really got into it, the sundae had melted into a milkshake consistency.  I have to confess, that despite eating everything up to this point, the sundae-milkshake was the appropriate conclusion to such an ordeal.

Verdict:  Totally didn't suck

Chocolate covered ice cream on a stick: I wasn't able to get to this item.  I leave it to your imagination.

[Zerkave]

so how many pounds did you gain?

OVER NINE THOUSAND?

[himmelkrieg]

You, sir, are my new hero. *sagenod*