Seventh Heaven: The Meat You Need To Beat

[webfact]

Seventh Heaven: The meat you need to beat

By Dan Waites

We can only presume this little guy is the culinary brains behind these fine products. Here, he's saying "Everything is delicious kraaap!" And we have to agree. Keep up the good work, chef!

BANGKOK: -- Woah. Since Coconuts Bangkok’s last Seventh Heaven, we received so many letters from readers confessing their love for 7-Eleven convenience snacks that we hardly knew what to do with them all! So we burned them. Then we wondered what 7-Eleven products we should consider next. After an eight-hour purple drank binge, the answer hit us like a bolt gun to a cow’s cranium: meat products. (Yes, we know that analogy was in appalling taste, but this is a column about 7-Eleven food.)

A new burger joint seems to open its doors in Bangkok once every three hours. Seriously, restaurateurs – why bother? Everyone’s favorite convenience store chain has a comprehensive range of burger-like products at prices you have no chance of competing with. And they’re doing creative things – crazy things – with the meat-product form. Donut-burger hybrids. Buns made from sticky rice. This. With a 7-Eleven on every corner, do you really expect anyone to plough their way through the Bangkok traffic only to pay through the nose for an artisanal Wagyu burger with gorgonzola, heirloom tomatoes and fried pancetta? Jokers. Here’s the meat you need to beat.

Bites

In 7-Eleven world, sausages are called “Bites”. Because that’s what you do to sausages. You bite them. The Bites are displayed at the counter in a sealed chamber with a transparent plastic lid. Under bright lighting, they revolve on an array of black cylinders. Inexorably they spin, like the planets. Their shiny surfaces glisten. Yes, even when it comes to mechanically reconstituted meat products, there is wonder. It almost seems wrong to have them plucked from this perfect little world, sliced, dropped into a bag and smothered in ketchup and mustard. But we do it, because at 4am our devolved selves have to. The occasional fragment of bone or cartilage, in perhaps one in five slices of a Bite, adds a frisson of excitement – will this mouthful be a smooth ride, or will it contain a crunchy surprise?

Cheese Bite

The launch of the Cheese Bite (THB13) a few years ago was when it became clear 7-Eleven meant business when it came to meat products. [more...]

Full story: http://www.coconutsb...u-need-to-beat/

-- COCONUTS Bangkok 2012-11-05

[edwinchester]

When I was a youngster beating meat was not something usually encouraged.