Elephant Bar Restaurant

My hometown - not the city where I receive my mail or my parents pay property tax, but the town where I attend college - used to boast a Lyon's Restaurant. I use the past tense because the decrepit building that housed the senior's diner beneath its 60s era architecture was given the demolition ball a few months ago. Before the destruction, the Lyon's building had a rusty [Ralph Nader] orange exterior that looked like it would be more at home on a shag carpet than on the outside of a dining establishment. Soon the citrus relic was replaced with wood frame that shouted "what will I be?" for several months.

My hometown has been inundated with a spate of new eateries of late as food businesses try to fatten the otherwise health conscious populous. Restaurants of all varieties have opened their automatic doors and extended the greasy hand of hospitality to diners, a gesture that reflected poorly on my town in Forbe's recent evaluation. Even restaurants that serve trans fat have started doing business which, in an odd sort of way, makes me happy.

The fate of the Lyon's lot was recently revealed as the new owners opened up for business. Decrepit Lyon's was replaced with Elephant Bar Restaurant - An Exceptional Dining AdventureTM. Exceptional is the keyword, as the greasy-spoon experience was also a dining adventure.

The restaurant serves American and Far Eastern food, where, surprisingly, the only elephants are in zoos.

While in theory there's no connection between the name Elephant Bar (An Exceptional Dining AdventureTM) its menu choices, one need not look farther than the portions to comprehend the descriptive nature of the title. The company's website even advertises "elephant sized eats"- a accurate description proven not only by the plate sizes, but by the many heavy customers. Only the dedicated are fed, as the restaurant does not take reservations (much like African watering holes) and the reward for waiting is a salad bar that encourages grazing.

When I entered EBR, I was greeted by a buffalo head, a lion and, of course, an elephant. I asked the waitress, a lady with a few faded 30 year-old tattoos, for a picture with the monkey. I was ignored (I hate it when characters block!) and promptly escorted to my seat where I was handed a large menu, filled with all sorts of scrumptious Asian and American delicacies. Being a true patriot and red-blooded American I ignored a delicious passing Chinese chicken salad and went for the Elephant Burger, a delicacy designed to serve up USA-sized myocardial infarction.

Fifteen minutes later the waitress returned with my drink order, and asked if I was ready to order my meal. Unfortunately, my sarcasm genes kicked in (my buck passing ability was also inherited, in case you were wondering) and I said no. Faster than I can laugh at my own joke, she was gone, and I was once again left alone with my menu.

10 minutes later when she returned, I simply answered, "Elephant Burger, medium-well, on white, no pickles or onions, and light on the fat, please."

30 minutes later when my burger arrived, I finally knew the reason I had chosen this establishment. It wasn't the creepy tattoo lady, or the menu, or the awesome monkey - it was for the "elephant." The elephant of aburger. I could do nothing to fight my heart's desire to eat it, to sink my off-white daggers into its tenderness and explore its juicy flavor. I didn't notice that they had added both onions and pickles or that they seemed to have given me some extra complimentary adipose. That didn't matter anymore; not when you've waited 45 minutes for your food.

I do vaguely remember that the burger was a little pinker than normal, a fact that manifested itself in flu like symptoms the next day. Bother.

All-in-all, I would give EBR a good review. Despite the fact that all the elephants were (big) belly-up to the bar instead of on the menu and my Sprite tasted more like Sierra Mist, I would definitely visit again.

2007: Clearing the fog off the rear view mirror

Wow. I can't believe how long it's been since I opened a window and began typing an FCN post. It's been longer than Mike Vick's prison tenure; longer than the gestation period of the Short-nosed Echidna, an egg laying mammal that looks like a porcupine but really isn't. It's been long enough for the cobwebs to form in our minds and the eggnog to settle comfortably in our stomachs and cork our sense of humor, as you can tell from the Echidna joke.

As I sit down to lovingly caress Kato's keys and move my fingers gingerly across letter markings that have yet to fade with heavy use, I wonder what in the world I am going to write about. This is supposed to be a year in review post, but all I can really think of is that final I bombed like Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray. Thinking back further - and this is digging up ancient history, yellowed with embarrassment - I remember a bad date I had in early December. Remembering a whole year back, well that is going to burn some mental calories.

But I can afford to lose the weight. So, with a crack of my knuckles, a tilting of my head to pop those stressed vertebrae in the neck and a clearing of my throat, we're off to look at the biggest events of 2007:

Biggest yawner: Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union

Did anyone other than lordration read past the words Bulgaria and Romania? I mean, this issue has got to have someone's blood pumping (otherwise the nations at issue wouldn't have waited 'till the Year of Bond to join), but in this camp everything is very placid. What a yawner. I've heard that even important European diplomats couldn't keep their composure during the negotiations. I cannot look at that picture without yawning. Can you?

But seriously, we should be congratulatory. I mean, for the EU, this represents an almost 8% increase in the number of member nations. And while Bulgaria's big sunflower seed production numbers are unlikely to engender much excitement, the nation does have some quality exports in other areas.

Event most representative of America: Takeru Kobayashi

Looks like a typo, doesn't it? Something the fingers thought of before the head? Ah, grasshopper, you must let the white guys at FCN explain it to you. Kobayashi (a Japanese Kobe Bryant, hence the name similarities) is a champion speed eater. In front of a televised audience and against daunting and overweight competition, he is able to quickly shovel down inhuman quantities of hot dogs, burgers and auto parts. I made the last one up, but the hot dogs and burgers really did go down the gullet.

Kobayashi is the Tiger Woods of his sport. Nobody else is able to wolf down that much food and keep it down for the mandated twenty minutes (a process some competitors analogize to giving birth). Unfortunately, this mastication great ran into a rough patch when he was placed on injured reserve after hurting his jaw. Apparently he tried to talk with his mouth full.

Second biggest yawner: Presidential Campaigning

Apparently a passel of overweight white guys (including a white guy disguised as a black man and a man hiding in the body of a woman) have traversed the greater Iowa area saying the same things over and over again. News reporters have gotten especially excited about this process and have devoted months of coverage to this issue over the last year. Predictably, nothing has happened. 2008 promises some new developments, but the word is we'll have to wait until November for anything definite.

Biggest disappointment: Windows Vista

Kato had a hard time accepting that I was typing the word "Windows" using her hardware. She's acting up a little. Giving me a little feminine static. This is my first female computer and I am still trying to figure out how everything works. Please, give us a minute.

Oh yes, Mac released an operating system, too. It's called the Leopard, but it only comes in white.

EDITOR'S NOTE: There was a vicious FCN board meeting over this item. The sweat poured from our brows like Samurai Jack solving a riddle. We yelled till we were hoarse. We pounded our fists on the table. By table, I mean each other. Eventually us Vista users were "convinced" to let the item slide. After all, nobody can really get excited about Vista. Even if it does have cool see-through title bars. That you can change the color of. And the transparency. And saturation.

Biggest shocker: Kucinich tried to impeach Dick Cheney

Apparently a duck hunting accident is a crime of moral turpitude and an act of treason, because Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich put his already tenuous relationship with the Vice President on the rocks by filing impeachment papers against the former Wyoming Senator. Boy, Dennis, doing something like that is going to make those double dates really tense. And that's one more person you can't go duck hunting with.

Biggest cheaters: Floyd Landis, Marian Jones, Barry Bonds and Bill Belichick

You're right. Nothing has actually been proven and test results are inconclusive. But whether the sport is cycling, track, baseball or football, 2007 has had its share of suspected cheaters. Bonds applied the clear and the cream and then lied about it to under oath (uh oh!) and Floyd Landis' cup runneth over with positive testing. Jones lost all five of her Olympic medals and Belichick had to make NFL history with an undefeated regular season to earn forgiveness from the gods of football.

Yup, it's been a good year for sports.

Biggest almost: 10 people almost overthrew the government of Laos

It's the kind of thing that would have been really nice, had it actually worked out. Consider: Your own, tax free vacation nation. Granted, it's a landlocked, southeast Asian country known more for its textile sweatshops than tourist acumen, but the ownership factor has to be counted as a point in favor of the enterprise.

As it is, the partakers of the would-be coup have a different vacation spot. And this one looks to be a retirement home: the federal pen. But hey, I hear you can get some great pick-up football with Mike Vick. And with old Orenthal potentially joining the 2008 prison draft, they have something to look forward too. Maybe with Barry Bonds on board, ESPN can start a new channel ESPN CONVICTS. The only downside: the normal ESPN would lose all its programming.

Biggest heat attack other than Alex Trebek: Dow Jones Industrial Average

Early in the year, the Dow was up like a New England point spread. Then the floor fell out of the market experts predicted your money would go the way of Heather Graham and Sharon Stone. In the end, nothing much has changed, Charles Schwab's hypertension notwithstanding.

With such an expansive review, it's hard to imagine I missed anything important. If you think of something, feel free and post a comment or beam us an email directing us to our omission. Thank you, as always, for reading FCN through our first full year of blogging. If classes next year are as interesting as classes in 2007, 2008 will be a great year for FCN. If they're half as interesting, we'll probably win a Pulitzer.