Diners,Drive Ins and Dives..North Pole Alaska.

Watched Guy Fieri's episode from North Pole, Ak and Fairbanks. In this episode he features 5 places,The Elfs Den, Silver Gulch Brewery, Big Daddy's BBQ,The Cookie Jar and the Pagoda. All of these I know well and have eaten in each for years. I doubt if Guy will ever read this but let me give you a former locals inside to these. The best...the Pagoda...great consistent food the guy knows what he's doing...although today I ate at a buffet next to the Hong Kong Market called the Panda King..7.95..all you can eat the BEST oriental I've had in a decade!...plus they have DIM SUM..every weekend (guess where I'm eating Sunday) I used to play the blues at Big Daddy's..for FBKS it ain't bad..problem...he's the only game in town...Harold if you ever ate at McClard's in Hot Springs Ak ...you would retire early....by the way I've seen Harold shit faced in times past...singing "Wild Thing" with the band (me included)...last time I ate at the Elfs den I almost got sick..Silver Gulch...great food good beer....to bad Guy never checks out just bars...Across the street is a Fairbanks Institution....The Howling Dog Saloon...my all time favorite place to play... a funky dive that every week is packed with fans of rock and roll,where you can see some guy in a suit getting hammered with a biker or a carhart wearing construction worker. Typically Alaskan. What was cool is while he was at the Elfs den he was sitting with my two beautiful daughters..Jessica (who said the food was delicious even though she was about to hurl) and Emily..also I saw an old girl friend from 9th grade Dee...at the Brewery he was having lunch with my buddy Tim and his wife...Tim was a guitar student of mine..frankly most of the folks on there were people I've seen around town....One final story...I grew up in Fairbanks...way back in the 70's the owner of the Santa Claus House has hired a sign painter to pant a big bill board outside the store. It had Santa waving people to come inside and see Santa...it was located right by the highway so every car heading to Delta or the border would see it. The owner of the Santa Claus house had a reputation of being a bit of a tight fisted asshole...Story goes he didn't like how the guy painted Santa and refused to pay the guy...this being the middle of the summer with lots of sunlight...the sign painter pulls up to the sign at 3 am on a weekend climbs up and "customizes" the sign....the next day every motorist driving down the freeway did not see Santa waving them into the store....they saw Santa Claus FLIPPING EVERY ONE OFF...ya you got the middle finger....needless to say the owner coughed up the cash and Santa was returned to his friendly wave....instead of the middle finger salute!!!!!