El wrote Also, what's this with calling it soft serve ice cream? Is that a Baltimore thing? I don't think it's unique to Baltimore--I grew up with soft serve ice cream (always vanilla, in my memories) on the left coast.

EL: it's called soft serve here, too.

Gailor Large: Here's what your mother wants for Christmas. (Don't peek, EL.)

Not a Baltimore thing. We call it that in Detroit, too, and I think I heard it some in Western Massachusetts, although I think frozen custard might have been as common there.

"Soft serve" is used other places too.

I've heard it referred to as "soft serve" all up and down the east coast from the grandparents' homes in Maine to the other set's home in Florida.

Also, lesser known song by Soul Coughing: "Soft Serve". A good one, with great imagery.

Here's your soft serve wiki. Check out the Japanese version at the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softcream

DQ calls it soft serve; that's a powerful thing.

Soft serve squid ink ice cream in Japan:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/40/79221147_3a2f69dbc3.jpg

"Soft Serve" on the machine:
http://www.generalrentalstcloud.com/General%20Rental/Party/food/ice%20cream.jpg

Never had breakfast at Chewy's but it was near my old office and they made an insanely good bacon cheeseburger on ciabatta bread. In fact, everything I had there was great - they are profressionals. So I believe they made the best breakfast sandwich in 2007. They are also known for their pulled pork bbq.

In PA it's all about the "frozen custard". If you get lost in Hanover/York (yes I've done that), you will pass no less than 20 frozen custard stands. I've been told that it has to do with eggs - if something is a custard or icecream, but I think they taste the same. It's all good!

I had a breakfast sandwich at Chewys on a few occasions. The egg on Ciabatta is huge and big enough for both me and my wife to share. There lunch sandwiches are amazing also.

EL - the Chewy's you saw was "Chewy's on Charles." I think the original is in Dundalk or Essex or some place like that.

Thai Landing has really good hot tea. I don't know what kind it is, but it's not plain tea. What comes to the table (in a pot) has some really nice notes to it, not that I could identify them.

I think frozen custard might have been as common there.

Soft serve ice cream and frozen custard are definitely not the same. Frozen custard has a completely different texture/mouth feel and taste. Joyce W might be right about the eggs; I don't know.

Anyone who remembers the old Emerson's Farm Dairy on Valley Road at Falls knows what I mean.

My childhood "soft serve" experience was with Dairy Queen. Maybe they came up with it first.

It's not odd no one mentioned Chewy's on the breakfast sandwich front. Chewy's is in Mt Vernon, which isn't an area with a ton of offices from which people would be going out to get breakfast, at least compared to downtown. And Piano Rob is the only Mt Vernon regular on this blog that I can see.

Hi Piano Rob! Maker's cheers to you! Are you going to be at the Trattoria on Wed.?

But surely someone who likes breakfast sandwiches who would read my post would also have remembered that award in the City Paper. EL

My Bourbon Girl! I will be there Wednesday indeed.

EL: Why would you think that anyone in the Sandbox would trust the City Paper's judgement over your own?

And, btw, the best breakfast sandwich I had was in the restaurant of the Hyatt in Miami.

Well, I'm flattered. But not even a mention? EL

They call it soft-serve here as well.

DQ just opened a new "Grill and Chill" shop here and it is mobbed every day.

Piano Rob and Bourbon Girl--I wouldn't have thought you two were compatible. After all, we know that PR likes show tunes and BG plays Scriabin.

EL: Next time you get the urge for soft (serve) ice cream in the early evening, drop by the entrance to the Bolton Hill Swim and Tennis Club. Three trucks stopped within an hour last evening, perhaps because it was the club's annual crab feast. Check with neighbor Rob.

Dahlink, the common ground between show tunes and Scriabin would be Gershwin, I believe. Right, PR?

Does anyone read the City Paper anymore? It hasn't been the same since Stephen Janis left.

The love child of Scriabin and show tunes is a tragically beautiful band known as The Shaggs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyDwIYXOE7g&feature=related

Long live the Shaggs.

Rock Chicklet said: The love child of Scriabin and show tunes is a tragically beautiful band known as The Shaggs:

Wow, that's several minutes of my life that I won't get back.

Ahhh, the Shaggs. Excellent, Rockchick. Lester Bangs (the tortured genius rock critic) said Better than the Beatles in a Village Voice review. I see the Scriabin, but not the show tunes.

Still think Gershwin (who has some crazy jazz stuff) is the best show tunes meets Scriabin. The middle part of the insane Scriabin etude I'm working on is total Gershwin, before Gershwin happened. It's jazz before there was jazz.

Food reference: I had pistachios for dinner (again). Hi PCB Rob!

Hey Joyce W. Read this on girl power:

http://www.keyofz.com/keyofz/vvoice.htm

Props on your comments over on McIntyre's blog.

City Paper? I quit reading when Gorelick left. Although I will from time to time check the letters to the editor to see if the woman who begins all letters with the phrase:"As an Afro-Centric Feminist" is still managing to get published every week.

As for Cheweys, Is that place opened on Saturday? I don't think it is, and that may explain why outside of those people who work or go to school in Mount Vernon, why no one talks about that much.

I always like to think that the City Paper superlatives are really just a guide to what the City Paper staff ubersubjectively enjoy. That's not to say that the list isn't worth taking a look at, but it should be read in context - i.e. if I was a City Paper staffer, I'd really like the Chewy's breakfast sandwich because it is one of the only places near the City Paper office where I can get one. Based on the description, I'd still check it out myself though!

As an Afro-centric feminist raptor, I am appalled at the aspersions cast upon the City Paper. I met a staffer at the City Paper a number of years ago and he was in charge of the letters to the editor. He said that he made some of them up, because he didn't get enough to fill his space.

Bourbon Girl - thanks for the interesting read and the props - back atcha! Womens liberation sometimes seems to have become a footnote of modern history. Cheers to all (with bourbon of course) who walk the walk and talk the talk!

City Paper haters - remember there's always Savage Love! Good for laughs if nothing else!

CP personals are occasionally funny. My favorite is when women describe themselves as "extremely beautiful". Oh she's not going to be plateful of bitchcakes with extra syrup. What? We can't hate on the CP, but it's okay to dump all over our gracious host The Sun? Isn't it weird that the CP never got any blog action going and the moribund, stodgy Sun belatedly did? Odd.

... The Shaggs .... VoR's kryptonite. No doubt "My Pal Foot-foot" would make his reasonable brainbox esplode. !)

BG, Lester Bangs article is great. I think Owly might just be channeling him sometimes.

I actually got my favorite radio station Indie 103 out of OC/Santa Monica to play some Shaggs a while back. Available on the internet at www.indie103.fm. The morning show is particularly good from 9am-1pm (our time) hosted by erudite punk rocker Joe Escalante (bass player for the Vandals). Fresh fruit for rotting vegetables.

Hi Bourbon Girl!

I love pistachios, but I try not to make them a meal. But they could be!

Mmmm... Pistachios. Habanero or Red Chile flavored. Mmm...

EL - I love the chocolate dipped soft serve as well, and don't know of many places that do that anymore. However, after coming over the Bay Bridge recently, I stopped in Ann's Dairy Cream on in front of Marley Station (had to pick up double dogs...a family tradition) and they still have chocolate dipped soft serve! Was tempted to get one, but the banana milkshake won out.

Catching up on the blog now that I'm back home, I checked out the Chewy's menu on their site and I am confused! Pulled pork on ciabatta??

It's the latest in fusion. Barbitalian. EL

"Barbitalian," EL? If the ciabatta roll is any good it will be crusty and chewy enough that there will be some serious pulled pork (and cole slaw?) coming out the sides when you bite in.

As in barbecue and Italian. EL

Barbitalian sounds like it needs Jane Fonda behind it.

Coffee on keyboard alert! Lissa your Baritalitian comment, too funny!

RoCK -- today's City Paper includes a letter from Larnell Custis Butler -- and, for some reason beyond my ken, she does NOT refer to herself as an "Afrocentric feminist" this time around.

oops - dyslexic typing - Barbitalian is what I meant to say!

Joyce, EL came up with Barbitalian, which is just brilliant.

It would be a hell of a movie night, us with our barbitalian sandwiches, watching "Barbarella". I guess for the second half, we'd have to eat caprese salad (with heirloom tomatoes, natch) while watching "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes".

Lissa- got the reference completely - Have even seen the masterpiece Barbarella, several times at that. Guess that dates yours truly! And your food pairings sound wonderful - I always love a good caprese salad!

After some good barbitalian and Barbarella, I would go directly to a classic barbitalian (barbaric Italian) horror movie from the master Dario Argento. He has his own interesting style not seen in American horror movies. They are both scary and ridiculous. I recommend Phenomena (1985) ... aka Creepers (USA), with Donald Pleasance and a 14 year old Jennifer Connelly. Remote girls boarding school in the mountains of Italy. Murderer on the loose. Jennifer can control insects with her mind to protect her. Freakin' awesome.

Mind control over insects? I'd just make them go away if I had that superpower.

Wait...that would be the perfect power for a Baltimore superhero. You could make millions getting rid of roaches and bedbugs...

Whoa! New layout for the blog. I thought I was having a stroke.