Rasmenia

A couple of months ago, I got a few messages from friends back home in the States about this:

Oh… & also, this:

For a few days, the Internet was abuzz with various articles about the Star Wars burgers in France & Belgium. Not surprisingly, those articles were riddled with comments from all of the very smart Americans who made it their mission to correct the spelling of “Dark Vador.” Even the very smart writers at Huffington Post were confused as to why the name was “misspelled.”

To avoid that here – & to prevent me from having to make fun of you – let’s clear it up right away & make it known that the character’s name in France is Dark Vador. Okay? Got it? (This translation prevents his name from being pronounced like “Dart Vah-day.”)

Now, then… moving on. As soon as Olivier & I found out about these, we knew we had to give them a try. We don’t eat at Quick very often & the closest one is about 30 minutes away, but we decided to make an exception.

The first problem was, the dates on the advertisement didn’t apply to the Quick in our area. Possibly, they were dates for the same promotion in Belgium. So… we waited. We kept an eye on the Quick advertisements & as soon as they arrived, we drove to the Quick in Chartres.

When we got there, only the Dark Burger & the Jedi Burger were available. The Vador burger would be available a month later. Okay, no problem. We immediately made plans to return in a month to get our weird, black-bunned burgers. I ordered the Dark Burger & Olivier got a Jedi Burger & as an added bonus, some cheesy stars. Cheesy stars!

Exhibit A & Exhibit B.

There was some mystery surrounding the Jedi Burger. What was it topped with? What could those mysterious chunks poking out from under the bun be? Big onion chunks? Cheese curds? Apple chunks? Marshmallows?

Seriously. Marshmallows? Sorry, people don’t eat a lot of marshmallows around here. Cheese curds? This isn’t Wisconsin. Cheese here might come in a wheel or a block, a slice or a slab, but never a squeaking curd.

As underwhelming as it is, it’s just chunks of cheese. Chunks that are melted by the time you actually have the burger right in front of you. Like most food, the real thing has nothing at all to do with what’s pictured in the advertisement.

There really is some meat & stuff in there. Honest.

As far as the taste, it was mustardy. The bun was heavily dusted with flour & it was filled with cheese & a mustard sauce. This is all according to Olivier, who was able to provide me with feedback on his Jedi burger when he wasn’t otherwise occupied.

Making Darth Maul box battle with Yoda box is actually a damn good time.

The Dark burger, much to my surprise, had a reddish-orange bun. I guess I couldn’t really see that in the ad, but I saw it right away when I opened the box. I saw somewhere, in the comment section of one of the aforementioned articles, some speculation as to what might be on the bun. Special spices? Bagel seasoning? (What is bagel seasoning?)

Well, prepare to be underwhelmed again. It just had some poppy seeds on it.

There was a black pepper kind of mayo in it. As far as I could tell, it was the exact same black pepper mayo that Quick uses for some of their other burgers, like the Quick ‘n’ Toast, which is what I typically order from there when I do go to Quick, so… really, the Dark Burger didn’t taste much different than my other visits to Quick.

I have no idea why the bun was reddish-orange. I’m guessing it’s just food coloring, since there was no special taste.

But that isn’t what you want to know, is it? You want to know what in the hell is up with that funky black bun, right?

Prepare for more disappointment.

Like I said, we made plans to return the following month so that we could try them out. Yes, we were actually willing to put those things in our mouths & bodies, in spite of the fact that neither one of us really gives much of a shit about Star Wars. (C’mon… it’s not like they were Star Trek burgers, people.)

Unfortunately, Quick fucked us. Usually, the limited edition burgers last for one month. The Dark Vador Burger? Four days. FOUR FUCKING DAYS.

Which made me think… maybe it was a little too weird for the French public to justify putting it on the menu for a full month. This wouldn’t surprise me at all. I mean, these guys feel revulsion at things like blue cake frosting or peanut butter, so the black bun might a be a bit much for anyone who’s not a full-on Star Wars nerd.

But, we did get cheesy stars. Did I mention the cheesy stars?

I’m willing to bet that we’ll get another chance. I’m sure that the next time George Lucas releases a Star Wars movie in 3D, there will be some bizarre fast food item or black bunned burger being sold in Europe that I can eat for my American friends back home.

Until then, I think I’ll be eating normal, green-colored salad. I think I might still have some star cheese floating around in my system.

Between Belgium and Germany, Olivier & I decided that it was absolutely necessary that we spend at least one night in the Netherlands.  We ended up spending the night in Breda, between Rotterdam & Antwerp.

When we arrived at our hotel room, it was an oven full of stagnant air, little soaps & disposable plastic cups.  We had spent the first half of the day broiling inside of our car.  We needed a cool place… a comfortable place.

We needed a place that would fully let us appreciate the Netherlands.

We needed a coffee shop.

Within walking distance of our hotel was a place called ‘The Cat‘.  We got inside, went up to the counter & placed an order: 2 cups of hot tea & 5 grams of Super Skunk.

After a few minutes, I realized that I was still sweating & that I had been sweating for the entire day.  I asked Olivier, “Why is it that we ordered fucking hot tea?”

“Uh… I don’t know,” he said.  “What did you want instead?”

“Um… I dunno.  Something cold.  You know… ’cause it’s like… hot outside.”  It was obvious that we were becoming dumber.  I looked around, taking in the atmosphere.  The place was small & dark with only a few people sitting on couches as they smoked & talked quietly.  We were seated between the counter & the front door.  Every couple of minutes, someone would come in, mutter something in Dutch at the counter & would quickly leave.

“This place is dark… & serious,” I said.

“Yeah,” Olivier said, looking around.  “Do you want to go?”

“Well, I don’t feel like whispering any more & I would like to be outside where I can have fresh air & feel free to act retarded.”

So, we walked out into the street… looking a little like this:

As we strolled around on perfectly paved sidewalks, we marveled at the clean streets & well-constructed bicycle lanes.  Everything was so clean, colorful & organized.  I had never seen so many people on bicycles in my life.  As we ambled, the shining green streets suddenly went bad.  They had turned to desert.  We didn’t see anyone, save for a few street toughs & bits of sidewalk litter.

“Are we in a bad neighborhood?”  I asked.

“Nah,” Olivier said.  “It’s just Sunday, so no one is out.”

“This is the scariest Sunday EVER,” I said.

Then we heard the music.  In our excited confusion, we were helpless to do anything except follow it to its source, which we found moments later.  We found a crowd of people, young & old, dancing, drinking & twirling about.  A heavyset woman was on stage, dry humping an enthusiastic & very skinny man as she growled out some dirty jazz tune.

Olivier & I stopped for a moment, taking in all of the revelry that surrounded us.  We were baffled, but entertained.  We kept walking & found yet another stage, with more twirling, festive people.  Now we understood why the streets a few moments ago were such a fucking desert – everyone was here, jazzing & drinking.  It didn’t make any sense.  What was this place?

We looked at one another & proclaimed, “Holland is WEIRD”.

It turned out that we had stopped in Breda on the very weekend that the annual Breda Jazz Festival was taking place.  Yeah, I know… that makes a lot more sense.  How was I to know that there would be a logical explanation?  It all seemed too weird for logic.  I can see now that our condition might have had something to do with that.

A little while later, after we had spent some time exploring the city & the festival, we stopped near a statue in a somewhat quiet place.  Soon after, my ears were attacked by some musical notes that swirled & spun around, sounding as though Mark Twain & riverboats were floating around in them.  I got very excited & grabbed Olivier’s arm.

“Do you hear that?  Do you hear that?”

“Yes, yes… I hear it.  Are you freaking out?”

“Yes!  I’m freaking out!  I’m freaking out!  What is it?”

Then I saw a man with a megaphone, surrounded by people, parasols bobbing up & down, horns playing, people dancing.  I was giddy.

We got closer & later, I learned that we were watching the Blue Marble Silver Cornet Band.

After some time, we moved on to explore more of the city & to enjoy our Super Skunk in the park like vagrants.  As we meandered back to our hotel, we came across various sculptures…

Between the giant puking head & the ’69′ sculpture, we didn’t really know what to think… was this city’s taste in public art truly bizarre, or did we simply get our money’s worth at “The Cat”?

We finally made it back to our hotel room where we celebrated a truly weird day with chips, candy bars & a 2-person conga line, just like one might expect.

Here’s a brief video of the Blue Marble Silver Cornet Band playing at the Breda Jazz Festival.  The peppy old man who makes an entrance at 3:48 makes it all worthwhile – especially since he didn’t die of heart attack before the end of the song.

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Technocrati Tags: Breda, Holland, Netherlands, travel, Jazz, Festival, Blue Marble Silver Cornet Band, coffee shop, The Cat, Europe, vacation, marijuana, sculpture, weird, ridiculous, jackasses

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