Next, I visit a Mexican fast-food place, but its main offering is actually clam chowder. They've got three vats you can choose from. The first two are traditional chowder recipes, the man behind the counter tells me, but the third vat is special. It's a combination of the first two recipes ... mixed with a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. People love it, he says. It was written up in the Times. I decide against it.

The restaurant also has vegetarian and meat pastries; the veggie ones are indicated by toothpicks with strawberries stuck at the top. What I end up buying, though, is a dessert. It's the shape of a corndog, but it's made of sweet batter that's fried, covered with powdered sugar, and stuck on a stick. It's called an "oof."