Welcome to Off-Menu , where we'll be rounding up all the food news and food-adjacent internet ephemera that delighted, fascinated, or infuriated us today.NEWS“On Thursday night, we heard back from a supervisor: It was a beverage, most likely boba tea. They found tapioca pearl balls. It was mopped up by our cleaners,” BARTmedia wrote. “We want to clear the record that nobody was hurt and the mess was not blood. It was just boba tea, and it was cleaned up.” Again, this time.
- If you’ve ever scrolled through the r/BayArea subreddit, you’ll notice that a significant number of posts are about BART, the all-around-shittiness of BART, and iPhone pictures of people eating on BART. A user named bourbonboots recently posted a photo of what legit looked like the blood-streaked floor of a BART train car, asking whether “BART [was] waiting for forensics before cleaning this up.” Other commenters said that the red stains looked like “red wine vomit,” beets, or a recently dropped chum bucket. (It could happen: It’s BART). Two days later, the official BART account responded, reassuring everyone that no, it wasn’t Midnight Meat Train cosplay—at least not this time.
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- Police in Austin, Texas, have just released the details of a nine-person brawl that happened at a Whataburger restaurant in the southwest part of the city. According to KVUE, a group of five men had just gotten their food when they allegedly started an altercation with the four men beside them. It escalated quickly: punches were thrown, one person was tossed over a pedestrian guardrail, and that same guy’s Yeezy sneakers were stolen right off his feet. Four of the five instigators have been identified, and two of them have been charged with robbery. Personally, I’d rather finish my Double Meat burger instead of trying to push my feet into a stranger’s still-warm shoes, but you do you.
- A Chicago man rented out his super-luxe Lakeview condo and came back to discover that the vacationers had stolen pots, pans, electronics, a toilet seat (!!!), and nearly $50,000 worth of his “investment wine.” Andrew Reese told CBS Chicago that his wine collection was locked in a storage closet, but his terrible guests snapped the lock off and helped themselves to around 50 bottles of the good shit. It’s kind of hard to feel bad for a dude with shelves full of “investment wine,” but we do appreciate the fact that he tried to go Armchair Sherlock on their asses: He realized they’d used a stolen credit card to rent his place, but he was able to track them through the email address that they’d used to log in to a Netflix account. He connected that email to a Facebook page and, because people who steal toilet seats tend to be idiots, he saw that the alleged thief had starting posted pictures of Reese’s stuff—including an $8,000 bottle of limited-edition wine. Reese took all of his evidence to the cops but, as of this writing, the police had declined to take action or arrest anyone. So—pro tip—if you’d planned to commit grand larceny this weekend, don’t start Russian Doll until you’re back in your own place.
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- The Mexico Pavilion at Walt Disney World (YES, I KNOW IT’S TECHNICALLY IN EPCOT, LAY OFF ME) has a hacienda-themed restaurant that serves $11 guac and $37 carne asada; one ride that’s a slow-moving mashup of Donald Duck and Mayan ruins; and La Cava del Tequila, which some people say is the best tequila bar in America. According to The Matador Network, the entire staff at the tequileria is certified by Mexico’s Consejo Regulador del Tequila (Tequila Regulatory Council), which is slightly surprising for a bar that’s a two-minute walk from the Frozen Ever After boat ride. It also has a high-end menu, one that includes $250-per-serving pours of the ultra-aged Jose Cuervo 250 Aniversario. “I think the biggest difference with our menu is that we only carry 100-percent agave tequilas, and we do not have many of the most common brands, or if we have them, we don’t push them,” beverage director Javier Villegas said. “We are constantly looking for brands that use a more traditional, artisanal, or handcrafted production process, instead of highly industrialized ones.” So that’s why they call Disney World the happiest place on earth.
- We would never encourage you to think about restaurant carpet for a number of obvious reasons, but this three-minute video of an unnamed restaurant’s ultra-disgusting floor being steam-cleaned is both satisfying and impressive.
- No matter how terrible your day has been, or your week has been, or your twenties have been, at least you haven’t broken this much glassware. Or at least not at once.
Happy Friday.