There’s a lot of damn western restaurants in Shanghai serving whatever damn western food and a damn meal costs over a 100 damn kuai and there’s a damn delivery fee on top of that and you’re still damn hungry and it’s just a damn sandwich or whatever, why is this so damn hard, why is this costing so damn much. Damn, Shanghai restaurants. Damn. And then, as everybody knows, there’s Munchies. Munchies is American “boutique fast food”, a husband and wife operation with two locations -- burgers, hotdogs, sandwiches, milkshakes, and more -- a very satisfying, cost-effective gut blast delivered to your door. The name is a weed joke (hahaha) and the staff apparently dresses in hippie tie-dye clothes or something, I don’t know because I’ve never been to the actual restaurant, I eat it on the couch in my underwear, hungover to fark, and watching a movie with Vin Diesel in it and he’s like an agent or a mercenary or a cop or something. He's a "weapons specialist". This much is true: on the golden mathematically equation that solves food cost to taste satisfaction to nutritional fulfillment -- charted on a 3D graph with wallet-stomach-spiritual satisfaction axes -- Munchies delivery scores very high. By my calculations, 34.6568. Probably higher than any delivery in Shanghai. It’s the only restaurant in town that knows I’m not on a date – never on a date, God no – and I’m not “trying to impress guests”. Never. What’s a guest? Let’s be real: I’m not even going to wipe the barbecue sauce out of my chest hair when it slops down because that’s what the shower tomorrow morning is for. I just need someone to feed my damn face because the movie is just starting and Vin Diesel is at like a CIA headquarters or something and he a "street level recruit" with "off the charts aptitude tests” and “genius-level code breaking skills”. Shit is about to go off. Need a damn chillllli dogggggg and a shake! For like 50rmb! Oh shit, it's on, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! For two or three or four years or something like that it was a love affair. I ordered that damn Munchies, fast and furious, like three times a week and all was good in the Shanghai world. And then something happened. They’re in-house business took off -- you can hear it over the phone when you order -- they expanded, had to re-staff for Lunar New Year or something, I don’t know what, but I had four shitty delivery experiences in a row culminating in, no exaggeration, the most horrible experience of my entire life -- no exaggeration, most horrible thing ever, ever, oh my God -- in which a delivery guy sprayed cheese all over my door. The string cheese incident. So I freaked out, wrote the only restaurant review I’ve ever written and swore off the restaurant. And then two days later, I was like fuck it, ordered again and it was alright again. And then I ordered again like three more times after that and it was all good. But the nice thing was after I had that meltdown, the owner of the restaurant emailed personally to apologize. *** He writes: “Not sure exactly what to say accept this is a huge disappointment. I am sorry for your recent run of bad experiences here at Munchies. My name is Jason, my wife and I run Munchies here in Shanghai. I do apologize for not getting good value and simply not getting what it is that we try to offer everyone here in Shanghai. Which should be good service, tasty American food and honest prices. I hate reading and replying to something that I thought I had a better control over… It’s not going downhill fast; I haven't given up on our standards. I'd like to blame it on all new staff after CNY, but it’s not all that. I would hate to lose a long-time customer but I do understand. Thanks for making things clear that we have a problem that needs addressing. Check back with us soon enough. Things, I can guarantee, will get back to normal and with a few new changes to come… Sorry once again Morgan…” *** Isn’t that nice. The thing about restaurants in Shanghai, and probably restaurants everywhere I assume, is that actually -- strangely enough -- they’re not all out to get you and they’re not trying to scam you. They actually want to make you happy and serve you food you’ll like. It’s a hard job, mistakes get made, and people are human. But maybe should all relax a bit and have a little perspective. It's just a hamburger. I’ve “revisted” Munchies delivery like 3 million times over the years and have been satisfied like 99.9% of the time. This is my professional opinion on the restaurant and I’ve seen basically every single Vin Diesel movie, including The Pacifier. Do not see this movie. Pfffttt. Here’s how I roll at Munchies:

The New Standard

I OD’ed on their burgers in the first few years of ordering and now I’m a Central Park hotdog guy with a non-freedom fries side dish plus Cosmic Charlie. In my opinion, it’s the best combo of options that fill you up and still leaves you active enough to jog to the bedroom to retrieve the bong between screenings of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift and Fast Five -- the fifth one. Skip the fourth Fast and Furious -- it’s a horrendous piece of shit that insults your intelligence.

The Healthy Choice

This is what I order when I’m training for the Olympics. A nice healthy BLT with piles and piles of bacon, slathered in mayo on a baguette. They forgot the “T” this time. Oh Munchies! That green bastard is a cucumber juice. You have to really like cucumbers if you order this but it does take valuable milliseconds off your 100-yard dash.

Osama's Nightmare

BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger badboy with freedom fries and a peaney-butter chocolate-brah shake. This’ll kick your ass into next week. This is what Vin Diesel eats right here before he drives a Lamborghini through the face of some freedom-hating terrorist. USA!

Ordering Tips:

-Extra Catsup: They give you one lil’ ketchup guy and that’s usually not enough if you’re an enthusiastic freedom fry dipper. Order down “extra ketchup” and party on. They’ll send over two lil’ ketchup guys or a bigger ketchup guy for your effort. -Explore the other side dishes: The number one leading cause of Munchies fatigue is automatically ordering the freedom fries with everything. I don’t mind the potato salad. The pasta salad is so-so and has some healthy broccoli bits in it. And coleslaw is coleslaw. A cornerstone of Western civilization. -They have other nice milkshakes: Yeah, the peanut-butter chocolate is both awesome and dope, but if you order it too much you get sick of it and, again, this leads to Munchies fatigue. Get down on a simple vanilla or strawberry. They’re really quite good. And there’s other nice singular juice options as well, like the Cosmic Charlie. -South Beach Cuban Sandwich: Forgot to mention the Cuban Sandwhich in here somewhere. That’s a good one too. Good thing about Munchies is that it exposes you to the rich cultural and culinary heritage of North America. Like Cincinnati! -Salads: Munchies has something called “salads” as well but I can’t confirm this. *** For both listings of Munchies, click here. Click here for the menu.