Welcome to ColemanWatch, a weekly feature in which we parse the particularly florid stylings of the Portland Mercury's resident food critic, Patrick Alan Coleman. Seen a sentence we've missed? Log on to your bright, burning email screen, and wend a grandiloquent email our way.
Welcome back, lovelies, to the much-missed (by us, at least) ColemanWatch, the first of the New Year. And what better way to welcome in 2010, the first year of the next decade, the first week of the next month, the first day of the next round of ColemanWatches, than by talking about, um, PENIS?
Over/under on creepy/awesome that resident mascot and Portland Mercury restaurant critic Patrick Alan Coleman talks about PENIS while reviewing a restaurant that's mostly for kids? We'll leave that one to you, dear readers, while pointing out first the epic nostalgia and self-awareness that comes from the introductory anecdote of early trips to Casa Bonita, a restaurant near Denver that boasted "a three-story waterfall, cliff-divers, caves, and totally inedible Mexican 'food.'" The correlation between that place, and the subject of this week's review, the make-your-own-pancake joint, Slappy Cakes? The notion of gimmick. Which has nothing to do with PENIS. Which has everything to do with this piece.
Ahem.
Veering back onto course, let's see just how this gimmick works.
They give you the batter in eight-ounce squeeze bottles, a gleaming hot surface to cook on, and optional add-ons like blueberries, bacon, and lemon curd.Helpful, reasonable, even appealing!
It's up to you to create your pancakes: dinosaurs, penises, Mickey Mouses. The sky's the limit.Zoinnggggggg!
Segue into a description of the mostly-horrendous alternative offerings, but at least one reader was just racing through, hoping for some more salaciousness. And, of course, our Eater mascot delivers, in the form of an imaginary conversation: "It's a rocket ship, sweetie."
OMG OMG OMG HE MEANS PENIS!!!
And then, all of a sudden, it's over. Of course, like all good pen is mightier exciters, Coleman leaves us just breathlessly entranced enough to be sure that, next week, we're so coming back for more.
(shhh. penis.)
· Good Gimmick [Portland Mercury]
· ColemanWatch [EaterPDX]
