What kind of mouth-breathing, mandal-wearing, three-toed sloth would even think of buying a bag of ketchup-flavored chips? Until yesterday I’d never heard of them. They were being offered free in the third-floor press room at the Bell Lightbox. Apparently Canadian Lay’s ketchup chips aren’t well known in the States. Buzzfeed ran a story about them 20 months ago — one of the quotes was that the ketchup chips “taste like a mistake.”

Yesterday afternoon I ordered a bowl of cream of broccoli soup at a sports bar on John Street. I don’t like sports bars, partly because they attract jowly conservative types who are living in the ’70s or ’80s and partly because Sports Bar food is always old-fashioned — too fatty, too meaty, lotsa fries — or otherwise doesn’t taste right. The below photos show what a standard bowl of the stuff looks like — little bits or chunks of broccoli floating inside a white creamy broth. The soup they served me yesterday was light brown and tasted like mushrooms.

HE to waiter: “No offense, dude, but what is this stuff? It’s okay but it sure isn’t cream of broccoli soup, I can tell you that.”

The guy offered to take it back & asked if I wanted to exchange it for something else. I politely declined. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant you know it’s not unheard of for chefs to spit into dishes that people have asked to be reheated or exchanged. I’ve worked as a waiter and busboy in restaurants and charcoal grills, and I know what goes. If you don’t like the taste of something, just send it back and pay the bill and leave it at that.