Racist Restaurant Review I

THE DIRTY BIRD
206 W 14th Street New York NY
ZERO Xmas trees

I get very annoyed whenever one of these "ooooh, so authentic!" "greasy like down South!" "the real thing!!" Southern-inspired joints opens up here; the crackpot reviewers that go gaga over any hi-falutin place in the big city that serves collards sound like the 23 year old girls who come across the bridge on Friday nights to the Turkey's Nest, giddy on their cellies talking to their friends about being at a "kitschy dive bar!" Keeping it real, are we girls? These people ooh and moo at new joints like this, thinking that orgasming over "real Southern food", presumably cooked on a pot belly stove while Loretta Lynn works on the still in the backyard, makes them somehow authentic, more" real" in the arts of Americana. Drives me crazy; like those fuckers who trample over your brain blathering about "real lumps" in the (s)mashed potatoes. Or Asians.

First of all, the fucking prices. Hey, I know your rent is probably equal to what Paris Hilton spends on video tapes each month but camon - $7 for 2 pieces and a side? One of the 2 pieces of course being a tiny fucking wing - making you feel like you got cheated, like having a threesome and one of the girls is fat. There is no way to justify such ridiculous prices for a food that originally became so popular based on its cheapness. If you aren't smart enough to avoid being feathered, breaded and deep fried then $5 is too fucking much to pay for two pieces of you - one of them, as I said, being a wing. Or $4 for a fucking side of macaroni and cheese (or, if you're REAL and AUTHENTIC and grew up in the woods with Buford Pusser, "mac n cheese." grrrr) that is LITERALLY the size of a small coffee cup. And $8 for a SALAD????!!! At a fried chicken place??!! Fucking hell.

Now, the sides. The macaroni and cheese - as I said, arriving in a small coffee cup. Wow. Thanks guys. Looking at it I could tell it blew. I'm not an expert, but if I'm looking at macaroni and cheese and I can't see any cheese, I might be thinking "this may suck." After getting through the limp, TASTELESS elbows I found the cheese. Pooled in the bottom of the cup. Though I wouldn't call it "cheese" as much as "oil and butter." Gross. $2 as a side! $4 by itself!!! Nononononono. So then I look at, lemme get this right, the "unleavened shallot cornbread." Now, I know sometimes I may cruise in the hyperbolic lane, but I am not lying when I say it looked like a 1/4-inch thick slab of wax. Shiny and plastic. I'm like wtf....luckily, again, when I bit into it it was UTTERLY TASTELESS. Unreal. Cornbread is another one of those magical words non-Southerners like to throw around when talking "real Southern food; "like "collards", or "sister." I guess they picture everyone in their cabins with a fresh batch cooling in the cast-iron skillet on the windowsill. Christ. Cornbread for breakfast, cornbread for lunch, cornbread for the Queen's tea, cornbread for dinner. But even then these fucking city people can't leave well enuff alone, they insist on trying to be "real" while cosmopolitan - ergo the shallots and the weird shape and texture. Awful. One bite, in the trash.

And the chicken. What is it about people up North not being able to fry a chicken? Every mother in my hometown could whip up a fried chicken dinner at the drop of a hat. They could have no money, no stove and only 7 minutes; somehow next thing you know you're neck deep in great chicken and biscuits. Of course, the one woman in town who COULDN'T make fried chicken? My mother...who was from, TA-DA! ......the North. Christ. This chicken was extremely uneventful. I have never been eating a piece of fried chicken and looked around for the salt shaker. What the fuck - there's no salt on this mf???!! No salt. No spice, no flavor, nothing. Oh, it's completely serviceable, but so is masturbation, and I ain't paying city prices for that for fuck's sake. As I'm eating this tasteless shit, I'm having to look at all these reviews taped up on the window. Critics desperately trying to top each other about who likes it better, who knows what "real" fried chicken is etc. I guess this is like fucking an ugly chick, all the while thinking about how her friends sold her on you about how "she's so nice!" and she has an "amazing personality!" Thanks a lot. And one reviewer was John T. Edge, who should fucking know better.

So the food totally sucked and was over-the-top expensive. Though I didn't try the, and I quote, "freshly baked bad-ass cookies" ("ooooh, let's throw a curse word in the name! We're so glib!!!!!!!") Was that the end of our misery? Nyet.

The place is TINY; there's about 5 or 6 stools to sit on along the walls. We get our food, no place to sit, so we gotta stand at the little shelf that has the napkins/straws etc. AND is above the radiator, which was CRANKING. So we have to stand while we eat, all the while boiling in our own sweat. Hey Jews, I get it now...I'm so sorry. Anyways, sitting down next to us are two dudes who were there when we walked in. Oh, goody - one of them is drinking a coffee, and the other one has been done eating since before we even got there. They're just sitting there gabbing!!!!! One of my pet peeves. If you're done and it's crowded, GET THE FUCK OUT. Especially if the place is the size of a closet in the first place. But no. blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah ding ding ding blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah. Oh yeah, they were Asian. Blathering, oblivious. I stood so they could see me, having to eat standing up because of them, trying to catch their eye. You know, being too much of a pussy to actually say anything. FINALLY after the skin on my legs had melted off from the heat and I'm dizzy from standing for so long, Miso and Horny get up and leave. Finally. So as they're walking away we slide over to sit and....I'm reaching to pull out my stool, this FUCKING KID, some fucking kid, maybe 6 or 7 years old, walks into door, grabs the fucking stool from out under me and drags it up to the counter!! His father, instead of being horrified at how rude his future gay son is, is GLEEFUL, announcing to the cashier "He likes to see what's going on!" as little bitch climbs up on the stool at the counter. This was too fucking much, this I can't fucking take; I go over and tell Pops I'm using the fucking stool to, you know, EAT. Resisting the urge to take a wax brick of shallot cornbread and whack this fucking kid in the head with it. Of course the father gives me this "how can you treat a kid like that, you're an asshole" look. In return I give him my "Let me guess, your son likes Harry Potter, soccer and looking at my bulge" look. Fuck him and his douchebag kid, bound to grow up to be a shithead too. Sat down finally, my one victory of the day. Ah, whites...fucking pushovers.

So Dirty Bird completely blows, don't fucking go. The irony? Not only had we walked right by Popeye's on the way, but we had parked right by a McDonald's which of course was waiting for us when we got back to the car. "I knew you'd be back, fuckwads."

Special thanks to RRTHUR, who actually paid for this debacle, treating me and his brother in law.