Fresh Strawberry
Two AMC A-Listers remembering 9/11
“Why can’t I bring Scoop to the movies?”, I ask myself every time I go.
There should be a movie theater where you can bring your dog. And the movies they play are movies that dogs can get into. Nothing too loud, no big action movies. Scoop would have hated Oppenheimer for example. There are recliners for the people and dog beds next to them but also the dogs can go in your lap if they want. Lots of blankets for everyone. That’s it! It’s a pretty simple movie theater actually so I don’t know why it doesn’t already exist.
When Mark (Mango Key Lime) and I went to see Barbie on September 11th, we watched a woman leaving with her dog. I asked the ticket taker about it. She seemed surprised that the woman had a dog there in the first place. Their policy is that only service animals are allowed. Quick aside but when I went to see Magic Mike XXL, someone brought their cat and that cat meowed during the entire movie but that was at a Laemmle. I think Scoop would have liked Barbie because it’s very colorful. A woman in front of us got horizontal on the seats and at one point stood up and stretched, right in front of us, and then went back to sleep. Mark pretended to be her and said “hey it’s kind of loud in here” and that made me laugh. I think she might have slept there overnight but Mark thinks someone would have come in and cleaned and found her. I guess in his world, women aren’t clever. This is why he needed to see Barbie. He hadn’t yet because he also doesn’t believe women can be funny (jk of course, he’s friends with me).
We got to The Grove a little early and saw that the trolley was loading people up. We felt spontaneous and got on. Both of our first times on The Grove trolley! I asked “how far does this go?” which felt funny even though I meant it. Someone was turning 18 and the conductor shouted her out and almost made us all sing Happy Birthday but thankfully didn’t. We rode all the way from Nordstrom to Sephora. The conductor mentioned The Cheesecake Factory on the tour and said that the “New York cheesecake” was his favorite. That’s not a cheesecake on their menu but I didn’t say anything.
Something you should know about me and Mark: we like to have fun. Whenever we go out to eat, we rank every dish and explain what we liked and didn’t like. We have played a LOT of board games together. That’s basically how we got through the lockdown. I read the set up instructions out loud while he sets up and that part is always fun because I read it in a funny way and when he explains the rules, I interrupt him a lot and I talk about how I’m going to win, I make a lot of goofy faces. Mark acts annoyed and that’s very funny. When I hand him something, I don’t actually let go and he has to pry it out of my hands. That’s us! That’s our dynamic. He loves it. I love it. We’re friends! We also both love Scoop the most. Mark is Scoop’s “daddy” and he’s really good at speaking in Scoop’s voice. I know if anything ever happened to me, like I died, Mark would take very good care of our little boy. He’s a worrier. He monitors Scoop closely and makes sure he has whatever he needs to be happy and comfortable. If something is at all off with Scoop, he wants to figure it out. He gets upset when I touch Scoop’s penis because that’s Scoop’s private area and he worries that it feels embarrassing to Scoop. Mark has a special blanket he brings out for Scoop whenever we come over. Oh and he likes to play Hide and Seek with him, something we only really do at daddy’s house. And he’s allergic to dogs! He’s a big soft heart.
Back to TCF. We decided to split the loaded nachos with spicy chicken VERY GOOD IDEA and then Mark chose the Fresh Strawberry cheesecake for dessert. He said it’s because we were seeing Barbie but strawberries are red and Barbie is pink so I’m really confused. But I’m not allowed to influence the decision making!
God, TCF has the worst lighting. We tried to take a photo of ourselves there with the cheesecake but it just wasn’t happening. I also asked the hostess if we could sit at one of the tables that juts out and overlooks the AMC theater but she said that space was closed off. Some day I will sit there.
Right away I’m noticing this slice is smaller than a lot of the other slices I’ve gotten. It’s a slice of their regular ass cheesecake but they add strawberries to it. The whipped cream actually looked good and for the first time, the whipped cream enhanced my experience. The strawberries did the opposite of enhance my experience. The strawberries were too big to eat in one bite. They made me feel weak and look stupid because I tried to cut them in half. I was humiliated by the strawberries.
Look at this mess.
Now the cheesecake itself, I liked. Of course I did. It’s their Original slice. And the whipped cream this time tasted slightly salty? And I liked that?? It’s these damn strawberries. I think they should be smaller and more flavorful. Even that juicy part that looks so good? That didn’t do it for me. I think they should do a slice with blueberries on it but they don’t. There are a few flavors I think they’re missing if you really want to know.
Fresh Strawberry: 2.5 out of 5
Lemon Meringue
Mango Key Lime
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle
The Original
Classic Basque
Chocolate Caramelicious Made With Snickers
Cinnabon Cinnamon Swirl
Very Cherry Ghirardelli Chocolate
Fresh Banana Cream
Godiva Chocolate
Ultimate Red Velvet Cake
Fresh Strawberry
Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
Toasted Marshmallow S’Mores Galore
Tiramisu
Celebration
Salted Caramel
In other news that disappoints me, I joined Feeld this weekend. I put it out there that I’m looking for people to go on cheesecake dates with me because I’ve run out of friends.
Another guy who doesn’t think women are funny. Welcome to dating in LA. Someone get this guy to the Barbie movie!