Similarly, the more layers of caked on grease on the grill cover, the better the BBQ.
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Premium Mediocre is drinking beverages sweetened with “evaporated cane juice” (i.e., plain sugar)
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Premium mediocre is drinking flavored vodka
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Eurgh. If you’re gonna make booze out of mashed vegetables, it needs distilling.
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I think those are the cupcakes he’s talking about, the kind you get at a dedicated cupcake shop. Sort of how he chooses froyo instead of ice cream. It’s cheap commodity stuff gussied up with a fancy but empty label (“artisanal”, “gourmet”, “French”, “natural”, etc.) sold at a premium (but still affordable) price compared to the supposedly “low-class” stuff.
He puts an interesting spin on it though, tying it into the current economic environment (automation, cryptocurrencies, the right- and left-wing precariats, generational malaise).
Fussell trod the same territory as the Ribbonfarm article in “Class.” It’s outdated and not meant to be taken seriously, but it’s also very funny and still worth a read.
A couple of years ago, driving away from a client’s office at the end of the day, one of my friends there pulled up beside me at the traffic signal, frantically urging me to roll down my window. Guess what he said. [still laughing at the one].
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Thanks for basically restating pretty much everything I had already said; I love it when people do that, it adds so much to the conversation.
Hey, I didn’t say it.
I’ve never even seen that show to make such a judgment.
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Sorry, i replied to the first post i saw about cupcakes without reading the
whole thread. You’re right, it was redundant
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Thanks for the acknowledgment.
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The GLA fits the premium mediocre description very well, I had one as a rental which was quite disappointing for how expensive (to buy)it is.You could see where quite a lot of costs had been cut in places, and of course the big sellers usually have the Renault engine in.
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Where I live, I’m surrounded by way too many amazing local joints; the variety of food is kind of ridiculous, and there’s few-to-no chains around of any sort. But when friends want hearty homestyle Italian food, we inevitably head to Maggiano’s, despite having an actual Little Italy right around the corner from it stuffed with restaurants. Because in all of our experience, those famous family-run places are (a) touristy as heck (b) way overpriced (c) wildly inconsistent and (d) the servers treat you like dirt. So we get consistently premium-mediocre food at a chain and always have a good time when doing so.
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The thing is about many of these “premium mediocre” cars is that you can definitely get them very well equipped – it’s just by the time you add in the extra expenses to add all of the features you’d expect on a luxury vehicle it typically ends up costing about as much as the next model up anyway. Luxury automakers like Tesla, BMW, Mercedes, and Audi are infamous for nickel and diming every little thing on their lower tier vehicles.
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IIRC you’re in Boston too? If so I completely agree.
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Gentleman Jack Daniels
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All of the examples given in this thread are good ones, but there’s one thing that’s more premium mediocre than anything else here.
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Yup! I figured you were when I saw the Bertucci’s reference. Every once in awhile I’ve played tour guide for family or out of town visitors, and they always want to visit the North End. I end up indulging them with a visit to Modern or Mike’s for cannoli and when they see the lines outside the various Italian spots, we end up at Faneuil Hall for food instead.
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Touche.
If the BBS is ‘premium mediocre’ then by proxy, so is that person; because he or she is a member thereof…
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Have you been to Coppa?
Long ago I moved Jamie and Courtney to a third floor walkup in Weymouth (and his effin’ record collection dear lord) shortly after he opened Toro, and he told me to stop by and he’d hook it up. A few months later I took my partner there for her birthday and my mind was blown. Not only was it some of the best food I’ve ever had, knowing that we were veg Jamie whipped up off menu treats for us, as well as random cocktails- all compliments of the chef, so we felt kinda like rock stars. It was certainly premium premium, as is Coppa, which we made a point of going as soon as we heard (and could afford- dinner for two with drinks gets to $200 pretty quick.) Best part, Jamie still remembered us. Can’t recommend either place highly enough.
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My goodness, even worse. There are all sorts of marketing words whose definitions have displaced and/or ruined the original definitions. I’ve tried to make a mental list, but of course, I can’t recall them all. But here are the worst offenders:
premium (of course)
value
wholesome
free
helps fight
natural
guaranteed
sale
and, of course, the real estate words:
home (instead of house)
town home (instead of row house)
town residence (I actually saw this on a sign once)
etc., etc., etc.
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