If you’re like me, your Instagram feed is exclusively dogs, food, and home decor, AKA LIFE PORN. In your aimless scrolling, you may have noticed a very delightful new trend: rainbow everything.
I would literally do anything to share a rainbow bagel with Abbi, Illana and Stephen Colbert but ALAS, all of these danged rainbow foods were living in New York City.
Luckily for me, the fad world moves fast; rainbow bagels became passé and the faddists moved on to a colorful newcomer: the rainbow toastie (lol cutest word for grilled cheese). Obviously, this ish was initially Hong Kong only. All a girl could do was scour the Internet for her rainbow-colored in.
Finally, the Internet gods bestowed upon me a multicolor blessing: Chomp Eatery …in Los Angeles…had created a “unicorn melt” and the Internet was just getting wind of it. I HAD TO GO BEFORE IT WAS IRRELEVANT.
You know that movie Twister ? Where Helen Hunt looks great in a tank top and they spend their time in hot pursuit of the fast moving trails of tornados? Oh boy, is it dangerous. But they are doing it for SCIENCE! That is basically like fad hunting in every way. Like, honestly there is no difference. So, when you see an Instagram of a fad, you hop in your damn car and you get there as soon as you can… for science. Would I let my lactose intolerance stop me? Fuck, I never have before, why start now?
I popped two LACTAIDs, drove down to the West Side (no small feat in L.A. rush hour) and prepared myself for what was sure to be my version of hell: a line for a $6 meal. But when I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised, albeit suspicious to find no line in sight!
The place was a small, counter service, deli-style health food bonanza. I waltzed right in and ordered my unicorn melt, paid my $7.56 and sat down in the best light possible (for pics, duh). Strangely enough, they had a few magazines to keep my mind sharp while I awaited bliss.
Stimulating! Advertising for men certainly had gotten my appetite up. Finally, the gracious server brought me over my sammy. You would not BELIEVE what it was.
JK friends, it was a goddamned grilled cheese. It tasted like a few different cheeses on sourdough. Def had some Jarlsberg in there. I asked my darling server what secret ingredient made the rainbow come to life. She told me, with no trace of irony, that it was food coloring. Never meet your heroes, folks.
I ate the crust and decided two bites of a mediocre grilled cheese was enough when it came to the risk of me shitting my pants on the way back to the East Side. I don’t know what I had expected from this trend, but for reason I thought rainbow foods would taste like sprinkles or fruit loops or something! I did the decent thing (for science ) and pulled apart the insides to see just what was floating around in my belly. Not a great image.
To lift my spirits I hopped one store over to DK Donuts (an old fad friend from my past) and bought a 75-cent Bavarian donut hole. Shitting my pants was likely in the cards.
So was my fad-cashing trip to the West Side worth it? Was seeing the rainbow food trend in the flesh more exciting than imagining it from the photos on my feed? Would I ever think of a joke about the term “feed” to add to one of my food articles? The answer to all of these questions is sadly, no. All I scientifically proved was that the best thing to come out of this fad is my glorious photo: 59 likes is a lot for me!
When I think of the times I passed up The Grilled Cheese truck parked outside of my office, I feel sorrowful that I wasted my double LACTAIDs on this lackluster lactose disaster. When it comes to waiting in hour-long lines, I’ll save my patience for Dominique Ansel’s next L.A. pop up .
