Zennie Abraham goes to White Castle on Palindrome Day

After avoiding it, two weeks ago I bought Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (with John Cho and Kal Penn) as a Christmas present to myself of sorts, and really got hooked on the movie. It brought me back to my childhood here in Chicago in the 60s and 70s, and where I'm visiting on The South Side as I blog this.

My friends and I always went to the White Castle hamburger joint on Stony Island and South Chicago, across from a mosque that was ran by The Nation of Islam, and my Mom told me never to cross Stony Island to the side of the street the mosque was on. (Sorry but that's the way it was in those days.)

We didn't care about that; we wanted the White Castle burgers by the bunch!

Living in Oakland means giving up White Castle hamburgers. Hey, healthy food and eating local's certainly good for you, but I've got to admit the movement's presented in a boring way and the advocates tend to take things a little too seriously from time to time; it's hard to find a good burger in Oakland and there's no White Castle!

So I made it my mission to get to a White Castle here in Chicago and vlog my experience on Palindrome Day with my trusty Flip Video Camera. (Nope, they're not sponsoring me and neither is White Castle, as of this writing at least.)

The White Castle I visited was on 95th and Jeffrey on the South Side of Chicago. The manager, a young lady named Bria, was really welcoming and explained that even with Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle , business was slow. So I encouraged everyone to visit that store and buy a burger! It's on the video!

Taking Bria's advice, I asked for the "Number One", which sounds like "Number One" from the original Star Trek episode called "The Cage", and which I got without cheese.  (And for some reason it made me think of the "Royale with Cheese" from Pulp Fiction.)

Then I did something I've always wanted to do: open the bag and take out the White Castle burger with the camera running! That was about as much fun as going down that slide at the Google / YouTube San Francisco offices!

Talk about passion food! That's White Castle. Of course, it means extra workout time when I get back to Oakland, but it was worth it!