Drunk Food

The bars/club/pubs have closed. You are starving or else your long-suffering designated driver is insisting that you eat something now. Your next move is very important but do not fear, we are here to help chose the manner of the culinary attempt on your life.

The main factor in choosing your late night stumble home snack is largely beyond your control unless you happen to live in a big city: you eat what’s open. In most towns where only fast food and pizza places are open late, you will learn to love the greasy pizza or the McDrunk Food. Regional variations abound; fried chicken shacks, Waffle House, and Krystal are much more common in the South. Out West, late night taco stands are popular (not always of the Taco Bell variety) and the trend is moving east. Yankees tell me about orgasmic meals at White Castle or some greasy mystery meat cart in the cities. Many people wax lyrical about diners like Denny’s or Perkin’s, which are especially popular with drunken groups intent on annoying the waitstaff. Here in Atlanta we have the Majestic which is more of a ‘be seen’ place than good food, its like an after party but you aren’t in danger of breaking anyone’s furniture while showing off your dancing skillz.

In Fort Myers during my younger years, I vaguely recall nights at Denny’s and a smaller chain called Jerry’s (which seems to be defunct). After about 9 pm different subcultures rested in an uneasy truce once the Moons Over my Hammy were served, but much like an 80’s teen movie where there were random Goths at the popular kids’ party: it just looked weird and unnatural. Jerry's had some mean mac and cheese.

In London, the drunk food I most often found the greasy remains of the next morning was from Dionysos across from the Tottenham Court tube stop. I find myself dreaming of those fatty chips smothered in a thick curry sauce rolled up in a newspaper to this very day. A general rule of thumb if you do happen to be drunk in London or pretty much anywhere in Europe so I hear; any late night shop that has the words ‘kebab’, ‘doner’, or ‘falafel’ will be full of drunk people. There are whole websites and blogs devoted to doner worship. Extra points if there is wordplay involved , Abra kebabra comes to mind with its ubiquitous Irish presence, or if an aristocratic title is somehow added to the name of the shop ‘Doner King’ or ‘Prince of Kebab’ for instance.

On occasion the quartet of the greasy, the fried, the savory, and the fatty can be pre-empted by another of my favorite drunk foods. Be it ever so hippie but Annie’s White Cheddar Shells with broccoli and yogurt really hits the spot without angering the gnomes that dwell within my intestines.