This, ladies and gents, is the “Fake Chicken Dinner” from Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour in Mission Viejo — a dish that I did not have room to talk about in my previously published review. So I thought I'd share it with you now, simultaneously as a recommendation to order it and a warning not to.
First, I'll tell you what it is.
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The “mashed potato” is vanilla ice cream. The “gravy” is caramel. The “peas and carrots” are mint and cinnamon candies. The “chicken fingers” are Butterfingers stripped clean of of its chocolate coating.
These ingredients are not listed on the menu. The intent is to have you, the parents, trick your children by ordering it and telling them “Eat your dinner, then you can have ice cream!”
And when they start eating and realize that IT IS dessert, “HARDY HAR HAR!” you'll say. Though Farrell's doesn't require it, I think it best that you say “HARDY HAR HAR” to make the prank complete. Also, I think holding your stomach with one hand, pointing with the other, would make more lasting memories for your offspring.
Now, the warning: The mint candies are hard as jawbreakers. Coupled with this, the Butterfinger is obscenely sweet. I mean, so sweet, it hurts. And I won't even begin describing how sticky the caramel is. All together, that innocent joke will result in what I assume will be guaranteed oral decay.
But still, before the inevitable trip to the dentist in the morning, it's hella funny. HARDY HAR HAR!
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.