MOK (Man of Kent)

Our quest for the perfect burger finds us in Hoosick, NY, at a pub named Man of Kent (MOK to the locals).

[Score: 94. Currently this puts MOK in second to last position, however this should only serve to educate the reader on the limitations of our scoring tabulation. The MOK scored low on Server, Price, and Parking lot. The burger itself was superb, and would have found itself floating to the top tier except for our having to wait for over two hours to eat (not strictly our server's fault but simply the nature of the establishment)--it is extremely popular and the hungry observer should find his/her way there only on off-peak hours...NEVER on a Friday or Saturday night which was the unfortunate timing of our reviewers. The price of the burgers was elevated, the highest of our participating restaurants, but the selection was also the greatest. And there was technically a parking lot, yet due again to the extreme popularity of the MOK it is simply overwhelmed by the following which is due a restaurant of the MOK's reputation: it draws from far and wide.]

The evening began with a certain joyful expectation, encouraged by the distant sound of a gleeful sort of gathering within what appeared to be a slightly magnified dollhouse, the words, “Man of Kent,” emblazoned next to the visage of an Englishman donning the garb of a foxhunt.

But companion and I couldn't just pop over; we were cut off by a defensive line of bulky Wranglers and Escapades and a Ranger with a rusty top. We had pulled off the road to access the line of scrimmage. It appeared too testy, a bit “argy-bargy,” and so we went down the road, turned about, and came back to see if there might now be an opening for us. There was. Like a halfback through his blockers we found our way through the threshold...only to be met by a queue as long as a Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica. We were approached by a MOK waitress with the words...mebbe half an hour.

Oh, were that only half as true as the gab tossed about the bar in what turned out to be a two hour test of wills between management (The Gaffers) and our as yet untested pack of flankers (The Tosspots).

We mauled a bit within the rugby scrum.

We set our mark. Made a move left; a right. A bit of a dodge. But the MOK were tested; they were firm and experienced. This wasn't to be an easy match--no not on either side. What we lacked in experience and manpower, we more than made up for with persistence and an uncanny sense of idiocy. We’d no burger in a donkey’s years. Two hours of sidling, and shifting. Two hours of the MOK mocking us with a, “Dun jus’ stan’ there lookin’ Gobsmacked!--Fancy a pint?;” and a “Innit a fine night, chums!” Chaps, we were buggered.

Just as we was about to “throw a wobbly” (companion can be a bit tetchy), a table cleared. But others sat down. Two at the bar disappeared only to be replaced by the backs at the openside of the pitch. We tried to catch the eye of the ginger tending bar. She looked back at us like we was only muppets who lost their way.

But would my companion--Nay! My blood brother on the Rugby Pitch, my Grubber of the Grail Grill!--and meself fail to score even a pint, er point? Even a drop goal? Sure to say, we nearly gave up hope for a try in the endzone, even a Chip Kick (look it up), but we weren’t leaving without at least a’kickin’ ‘em in the shins. And hard too!

After a bit more of shilly-an-shallyin’ we made our final push all sixes and sevens and there! On the far side of the pitch a table for two and we made certain we would not be moved by a scrum of outrageous proportions, even if the guv’na himself ordered our bums be put out out of doors.

We chatted up some patrons. The place is a tad wonky and everyone seemed on the skint side of life, still...Me and my mate were as happy as a dog with two tails.

We ordered. We e’t.

Blimey, the chips were heaven-sent, the ale a native’s cradle-to-grave National Health System--and that aren't codswallop! And the burger...Oh, as Bob’s my Uncle, the burger! We wafted, we wefted, we wended our way toward the end zone of our peculiar possession: Ours was the win; ours the triumph! If there was a burger to out-burger this of MOK celebrity, I have not met it. It was as savory as me mam’s Thai Green Curry (me mam, she hates English cooking!)

MOK? We fought. We drank. But Oh, at the last, this night two blokes walked away as

winners in a match well-fought, spot on, and proper! Cheers!

Juiciness		9
Size Matters		8
Sides		9
Price		7
Char-ability		8
Meat Type		9
Hand-ability		9
As Ordered		9
Server Issues		ZERO
Taste		10
Ambiance		10
Parking Lot		6

Quality Assessment for the Burger Assay Test, Rensselaer County NY and Bennington County VT

For some time now, I and a friend of mine (hereafter referred to as "companion"), have made the effort to discover la mejor hamburguesa de la zona. La zona in our case is pretty much Rensselaer County in NY and the Bennington, VT area. We attempted to grade an establishment as well as the entree using an arbitrary scoring of 1 through 10, 10 being la mejor. The categories graded included the following:
Juiciness, Size, Sides, Price, Char-ability, Meat Type, Hand-ability, As Ordered, Server Issues, Taste, Ambiance and Parking Lot. Therefore there is the possibility of achieving a perfect score of 120. Some details need noting:

• If the burger is labeled as 1/2 lb we assess the relative weight comparing said burger to a variety of objects, comparing for weight, ie a bottle of Pale Ale, and or a ketchup bottle whichever happens to be at hand. Usually Pale Ale.
• A burger joint is allowably inelegant. Points will be added for alcoholic stills present in the front or rear. A burger joint's kissing cousin is the barbecue; barbecues including pig roasts will bias the reviewer to the tradesman's benefit.
• Nota Bene: Due to the possibility of compromise and a server's possible prejudice against those of a metrosexual nature (within the burger business these "Fancies" are sometimes given the boot), the reviewer and his faithful companion have gone to some length to appear as common and indeed slovenly as possible. The term is, I believe, "lumbersexual." We are confident that we are as close to the actual denizens of the area as is deemed prudent.

The actual grading system is recorded under a spreadsheet titled, "Quality Assessment for the Burger Assay Test, Rensselaer County NY and Bennington County VT" but since this is far too large for an easy viewing within this blog I will reduce it to an average score for each establishment. It should be understood though, that a burger joint does not receive additional points for cleanliness, elegance, or general posh-ness. Rather the opposite is true. One expects a burger joint to be somewhat "at ease," disorderly, and if sawdust or some such is found on the floor, well, one might expect one's interest to be piqued. An ideal burger, one can assume, is to be found in a secluded camp with a distillery out the back porch, serving a burger large enough for two hands, delivered as ordered (medium rare for myself, rare-plus for companion) with a side of deliciousness, by a comely, agreeable waitress...and cheaply...oh, and being serenaded by a blue-grass band.

Though we never quite fit all the above within one meal we did come pretty close. Among the establishments we have visited thus far are the following: Man of Kent (Hoosick); Kevin's Sports Pub (North Bennington); Foggy Notions, otherwise known to locals as The Bog (Cambridge); Potter's Tavern (Brunswick); Brunswick Barbecue (Brunswick); The River Street Pub (Troy). We will be adding others as we discover them.

Cinderella and Life...a la Derrida and Hegel?

Cinderella, a tale of redemption. Or: Cinderella, a tale of redemption? [The Audacity of Cinderella, by Rebecca Reynolds, 4/15/2015 via The Rabbit Room at www.rabbitroom.com]

Dear Ms Reynolds,
You ask why it is that we find the story of Cinderella hither and yon. You speculate that perhaps it is because people everywhere need this story to lift them out of the cinders of their life. Might I also speculate? My theory is that, as with most of the Grimm tales (all?), we are given a myth, a story overladen with layers of meaning reaching into ancient times, ancient religions, and that as myths tend to do, they reach across cultural divides and poke at something quite in common, and that they are an expression of peoples everywhere. Myth comes from some touchstone to human existence that might crop up from the fertile crescent, the Indus valley, and the Nile...one could throw in the Mississippi and Yangtze as well.

You write: "Somewhere along the way, our worlds grew dim, we got discouraged, and we forgot how much the fairy tale meant." You say that you had grown cynical, but this seems to have picked your spirits up...because now you see--as you once did as a child--that a gracious good can come out of a good heart, and not be quashed by a cynical attitude.

I thought you might have put in an Amen in there somewhere.

You rake Hegel through the cinders (or at least his "fidgety spirit" but you graciously do allow that "quite a bit in Marx's time...needed critique.") and Derrida (for his dependable undependability and defying of narrative norms). But you seem overly concerned that deconstruction, with all its messy search for truth and all, leads to uncivil behavior. You show us what can happen when teenagers become obsessed with deconstructive intent: Grand Theft Auto! And worse: Shrek!

Though you might find that a predictable consequence, I personally do not. I wonder if these uncivilized behaviors are not in fact modeled on a hopelessness that comes from deep within a quite uncivilized society, a society that prizes power over fairness, a society that rewards unethical behavior (as long as it results in a billionaire's salary), a society that no longer sees justice for all, but does imprison--or shoots--the mentally ill (because, after all, they're sick). A society that allows health care to be a source of profit for corporations.

So I see Grand Theft Auto as a result not of the tearing down of walls through Derrida, Marx, and Hegel, but rather a failure by society to use the tools of Derrida, Marx, and Hegel. Is not Power and the lust for power--which they would examine and re-examine--at the root of this rising evil? And were not these the very men of genius that would/could save us from that lust of power? I think so.

Your pure narrative, I have to say, is not so pure. The telling of the story Cinderella is not pure, simply because you want it told as you first heard it as a child. The tale is one of ancient myth, full of soundings of fertility cults, of the Demeter/Persephone sort. It is also full of the truth of our everyday existence: and this existence is chock-full of death and life, of evil and good, of trickery and grace. It is a messy thing, life. A narrative that misses this untidy portion of life by portraying it as a simple tale is not a ray of light; it mistakes nostalgia for truth, it casts false shadows because it fears to see life as it really is.

I have not seen the movie, though I do intend to one day. Viewing it, I will still hope that the director will deconstruct the tale in order to reveal truth (something that all true artists do). I will still hope the voices of Derrida and Hegel whisper into his ear. I will hope that you, Ms. Reynolds, just got this whole thing wrong and that you were merely seeing through glass-slipper eyes.