I may be in the desert, but the military is taking great care of me. Needless to say, I’m having some really good food days out here.

But the best food day ever? Well, that happened three months ago.

Funny comic/friend/culinary-adventure-guide Spencer Dobson had been giving me the food tour of Minneapolis since I got there. On one fortunate day, he took me to Ted Cook’s 19th Hole BBQ.

Now, I know how people have their favorite restaurants and they romanticize in their heads how great the food is, then this is amplified when they relate to others the tale of this magnificent grub. So it was with skepticism that I listened to Spencer’s glowing recommendation of the food at Ted Cook’s. I agreed to go because he seemed excessively passionate about it. Also, he was driving.

We arrived at 1:02 PM (Ted’s opened at 1:00 PM) and there was already a line of people, which should have been my first clue that Spencer was on point. I ordered the medium-hot half-slab of baby back ribs with a side of collard greens. They brought out our orders in brown paper bags which were roughly the size of small children. Clue number two.

My final clue came as we drove across town to a park where we would begin to messily decimate these delectable sections of pig torso. Walking from car to picnic table we were abruptly cut off in the parking lot by a truck screeching to a halt.

“Hey! Is that Ted Cook’s?” the guy desperately shouted out his window.

“Hell yes!” came our reply.

Immediately, he proceeded to burn rubber with a ferocity that would make the Gap Band proud, speeding off in the direction of Ted Cook’s.

All of the clues were correct, Ted Cook’s was the bomb. Push somebody out of the way to get there quickly, you will not be disappointed.

As if that wasn’t enough, later that night Spencer took me to White Castle. Having lived in Hawaii most of my life and in California for the last few years, I had never had the opportunity to ingest one of their legendary sliders. All I knew about White Castle was what I’d heard from Harold and Kumar and the Beastie Boys.

Again, as advertised, White Castle was the bomb. They even sell suitcases of their burgers, that’s how good they are.

Ted Cook’s and White Castle equalled the best food day ever.

So, thank you, US military for braving the heat. Thank you, Spencer Dobson for guiding me on my best food day ever. And thank you Beastie Boys for having more rhymes than Abe Vigoda.