Tuesday, January 03, 2006

It's pizza freaky, yow

Has anyone ever heard of Garlic Jim's pizza? Apparently it's a fairly new chain with several locations here in the Seattle area, as well as stores in other parts of Washington, Oregon, Arizona and more states to come.

I'm a huge garlic fan, but the menu doesn't seem to emphasize the stinking rose near as much as a place with garlic in its name should.

Also on the weird restaurant beat, I found this restaurant interesting. Anna Miller's is a restaurant chain in Japan that advertises "heartily prepared American foods, Pennsylvania Dutch home made pies and sweets." Reminds me of the supposedly American West sports bar we visited in Dublin -- somehow I get the sense it would be indeed heartily entertaining to see just how non-American this supposed "American" eatery really is. (Their pie list includes "Marron," whatever that is, as well as soy milk cheesecake and "rare cheese" pie.)

Also, Anna Miller appears to have the expansive boobage of a young Pamela Anderson, or at least those German women who wear tight bodices and serve giant steins of beer.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh wow, Anna Millers in Japan. I live in Hawaii, and Anna Millers is one of those homey little restaurants that I always thought was a franchise from the Mainland. I don't think there's any soy products at the one in Hawaii, but there's definitely Strawberry pie. That's mainly their signature dessert dish, but they make a variety of pies. Personally, I think their dinners are crappy (steak, potatoes-type of fare), but when I was young, I ordered the chicken pot pie religiously. My grandfather loved that place, so my family went there monthly. I'd rank it lower than an Applebees for its food, but it has great homey feeling inside.

Anonymous said...

Marrons are chestnuts. Marrons glaces are candied chestnuts, I've heard French people love 'em.

Anonymous said...

Could Marron be Marionberry? I guess chestnut is a better explanation, but that doesn't seem very American. Did you see their picture of a Boston cream pie? weird.

GoBetty said...

I *just* saw a commercial for Garlic Jim's last night on TV (was watching something on time shifting from a Seattle channel).

Anonymous said...

One of the funniest things that happened to me in Paris was eating at this alleged "Chicago" pizza joint -- oh god, they made all the servers (decked out in, like, "Grease" costumes) sing and dance to 50s songs every now and then, and you could tell they'd learned them phonetically and understood not a word of what they were singing, while Parisians (probably suburban Parisians?) enjoyed it all -- unironically. Good times. (PS: that was the only "American" food we ate the whole time, so don't go getting the wrong idea about me ... )

Romantic Pen Name said...

Marron is also a type of freshwater crayfish, just slightly smaller than a lobster, which would make sense if it was a sort of meat pie.

Anonymous said...

I'd only ever heard of Anna Miller's in the fictional sense - a character in MegaTokyo (www.megatokyo.com) works there.
-Mel

Anonymous said...

I have several pizza connoisseurs on my team at work, and Garlic Jim's is the pizza they request for team lunches. It's pretty good, and not necessarily garlicy.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of when I was Edinburgh, Scotland and saw a Mexican restaurant. I didn't go in, but I wondered what kind of atrocities they might have -- I know you can't even get proper sopapillas in Minnesota, I hate to think what they make then into in Scotland.

Anonymous said...

Could this be related to the Anna Millers Pies that were in California Malls in the late 70s early 80s? My family used to eat there all the time when I was young. I miss the days when malls had Anna Millers pies, and ice rinks, and that weird little candystand in the middle of Sears that reeked of popcorn. I want to be 5 again, sigh.

Anonymous said...

For some reason, the Japanese call chestnuts by their French name -- marron. There's at least one anime character named Marron Glace (from Sorcerer Hunters, in which nearly _everyone_ is named after a food, including his older brother Carrot, their friend Gateau Mocha, and Carrot's semi-fiancee Chocolat Misu and _her_ little sister Tira...); chestnuts are a popular ingredient in many candies and other dishes.

As for Anna Miller's Girls, I think they're sort of the equivilant of the US's Harvey Girls.