Hungover Spots

1. The Egg at Davidson: The Egg is situated in the corner of one of the sorriest looking strip malls you have ever seen in your life. It sits next to a tanning salon and a health food store, filling the space of a former pizzeria named Davino's. It is a place to come with your friends after rolling out of bed at noon on Sundays. You are guaranteed to see friends, fellow members of your team, or if you're lucky the tramp or creeper you hooked up with the night before.

The food is very good, and not just because any random grease you throw in your mouth after a night of drinking tastes like the best thing you've ever eaten. That's part of it, but not the complete picture. Emily likes to order The Junkyard. The Junkyard is a skillet consisting of two eggs, cheese, hashbrowns and whatever else you want on it. Emily ordered it up with bacon, onions, peppers, sausage and pepper jack cheese. Then she coated the whole thing with ketchup, ate about half and then gave it to her fatass boyfriend to finish.

Chris (the fatass boyfriend) orders a ham and cheese omelette

at every diner he ever goes to, and The Egg is no exception. It comes with hashbrowns and toast and usually a gallon jug of sweet tea, all of which tastes delicious while it's eaten and then slowly becomes an atomic bomb inside the stomach. As far as diners go, The Egg is solid... Not great, but solid... The atmosphere adds a lot of character to the restaurant.

http://theeggrestaurants.com

2. Toast: Now, there is a Toast restaurant right on Main Street in the booming metropolis of downtown Davidson. The original Toast resides in Huntersville, and this is the restaurant that Emily and Chris had the pleasure of going to on one half-drunk Sunday morning. Toast is a bit more upscale than The Egg, as far as breakfast joints go. It is filled with the church crowd and locals, rather than frat boys and slobs. Emily really likes Toast because they serve you a cup of the gourmet coffee w

hile you wait for a table.

On the day that Emily and Chris decided to go, they convinced their friends Sarah and Thomas to join them. Chris loved when Thomas came to eat with them because he would order half the menu and eat it all, which is exactly what Chris always wanted to do. The difference was Thomas was 6'7" tall and had a place to put it, and Chris was 5'9" tall and still waiting for his growth spurt.

Emily ordered the banana nut flap jacks which were a special on that day, but made their way onto the actual menu. They were really good. There were three distinct layers of texture to the dish. The flap jacks were incredibly soft and melted in her mouth. The bananas were slightly more firm and the nuts on top provided a crunch to the dish while the syrup sweetly coated each bite. Chris ordered a breakfast burrito with eggs, cheese, onions, peppers and chorizo. He also had a side of hashbrowns and about three cups of coffee. The burrito wa

s good, although Chris was slightly skeptical about the sour cream on his eggs which he had never experienced before. It was delicious and big enough to fill him up so he was happy.

Sarah ordered a Greek omelette, or something of that sort. She seemed to like it. Thomas's

order was the best though. Bagel with schmear (cream cheese), banana nut flap jacks, toast, bacon and coffee. Absolutely tremendous. Chris was in love. Thomas ate the whole thing, and the four sat and talked for about an hour and a half. In fact, they sat long enough to see their friend Fitzy come in with some random chick he had met the night before. He tried to go far enough away from campus where nobody would see him, but not quite far enough.

http://toastcafeonline.com/davidson/breakfast.html

3. Bagel Bin: The Bagel Bin is a typical NY style deli in the middle of Huntersville, NC. The minute you walk in the door, after waiting in a line outside for fifteen minutes, you can tell the

home of the owners from the Mets and Yankees posters scattered all over the walls. The Bagel Bin is the only place in the whole state that has what Chris would qualify as "a legit bagel". They are big, with a hard crust outside and a soft inside. The Bagel Bin has any type of cream cheese anyone could want, with options ranging form olive to vegetable to salmon to cinnamon. Chris would usually go for a turkey club on a poppy bagel with muenster cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo. It was always delicious and reminded him of home. He loved going to the Bagel Bin b

ecause they had Snapple Fruit Punch, his favorite drink. He would always get two. Emily would go with a whole grain bagel toasted with bacon, egg and cheese or a whole grain bagel toasted with tomato and cream cheese. You could not go wrong either way.

It should be noted, there was one thing about the Bagel Bin that really bothered Chris, and still does when he thinks about it. When you ordered a bagel or sandwich with an egg on it, they would pour the egg yolk from a milk container into a plastic bowl and microwave it. It tasted alright, but "legit bagel joints" will fry an egg right in front of you. It takes the same amount of time. Chris just could not figure it out.

http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&source=hp&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=bagel+bin+

huntersville&fb=1&gl=us&hq=bagel+bin&hnear=huntersville&cid=3045525760735958226

4. Zapatas Mexican Cantina: Zapatas is a great place to go when hungover, but even better if you can wait until about 6 or 7 o'clock at night. The best part about Zapatas is that they give a 15% discount with a Cat Card (Davidson student or faculty card). Now Zapatas is not any better or worse than any other Mexican restaurant that serves exactly the same food and exactly the same drinks. There is nothing at all that separates it from the rest, but for some reason Chris had been going there for seven years.

The margaritas were decent and you could order them by the pitcher, so at one point or another Chris and Emily had tried every flavor. They were hit or miss. Sometimes you could have a pitcher and be blackout drunk. Sometimes you could drink 14 and have a sugar high and nothing else. The best part about Zapatas was that every time you went, you would tell them that it was a different person's birthday. You would get a nice rendition of Happy Birthday in broken English, a sombrero and a tequila shot... Beautiful.

Emily liked the street tacos, and they came out in two large corn tortillas filled with grilled chicken, Monterey Jack cheese, honey-grilled onions and pico de gallo. They are served with rice and beans, and they are delicious. After eating three baskets filled of tortilla chips, the two tacos are plenty to fill you up. Chris always ordered the chicken nachos, which infuriated the wait staff, but he really didn't care. A huge heaping cheese, sour cream and bean filled dish garnished with tomatoes and olives. It is awesome. The best nachos in the world. He ordered it every single time he went there and refused to order anything else. Then he would eat it like a Viking, with a total disregard for silverware.

http://www.zapatasrestaurant.com/lake.html

5. LaSpada's La Spada’s is a little taste of Philadelphia right in the heart of Cornelius, NC. Emily and Chris had never been there together, but individually they had cured many a hang over at this nice little sandwich joint. This place is so Philly that it even comes with the attitude. When you walk in you are greeted by an overweight man with tattoos and earrings galore who is more than pissed off that he has to make a sandwich for you. In fact he’s so pissed off that he insists on putting a mountain of meat onto your roll.

The sandwich is a thing of beauty. If you order the LaSpadas special, it comes with every form of Italian meat you can imagine, peppers, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, oil, vinegar and then another layer of meat on top. It’s meat encased in meat… on a roll. If you can think of something better than that, you should run for president. The only problem is that after you finish it, the sandwich proceeds to mount an assault on your stomach. It’s well worth the temporary pain.

As is evident from the line which extends out the door during the lunch and dinner hours, the sheltered folks of North Carolina had never been privy to the wonders of monster hoagies that Yankees like Chris had been accustomed to for his whole life. Nevertheless, LaSpada’s came to North Carolina in just the right time for Chris and Emily to enjoy all the meat, grease and indigestion that it had to offer.