The Slaughtered Calf Inn Menu

Blizzard announced that there will be a "Slaughtered Calf Inn" at BlizzCon this year, fashioned as a replica of the inn in Diablo III. It looks like it'll mostly be a place for attendees to speak one on one with developers. However, my love of puns and restaurants won over and I felt compelled to make a full Blizzard-themed menu. It was published in The Weekly All In #34.

Drama of the Week: BlizzCon Announcement Leaked: Blizzard Restaurant Menu 

By: Mike Harrell 

Today I bring you Weekly All In EXCLUSIVE coverage of the Blizzard’s leaked plans for the a Blizzard themed restaurant. The pilot location is planned for southern California, with doors opening Soon. No announcements were meant to be made until BlizzCon, but it looks like someone jumped the gun. I can’t say I blame them! All of the food sounds excellent and have great names and descriptions. See full menu below.

Name: The Slaughtered Calf Inn 

Key: (D) Diablo, (W) WarCraft, (SC) StarCraft

Openings 

(SC) Ghost Pepper Poppers: Deep fried jalapenos filled with cream cheese, wrapped in crispy bacon, and served with a ghost pepper dipping sauce. The exterminator’s favorite. 

(SC) Appetite for Destruction: Twelve crispy chicken wings tossed in our spicy buffalo sauce. Sure to bring about a Rain of Fire. 

(SC) MotherChip Core: Crispy tortilla chips prepared in house, topped with cheddar cheese, black beans, shredded chicken, avocado, and sour cream. Served with pico de gallo and a band aid. 

(D) Keep it Rare Ahi Tuna: Perfectly seared Ahi Tuna medallions with soy, ginger, and lime. Served on a yellow plate. 

(D) Demonic Body Parts: Lightly breaded and flash-fried calamari rings. Seasoned with pepper flakes and served with your choice of orange sauces. 

(W) Timeless Isle Gyoza: Time will stop when you bite into these delightful dumplings. Filled with our signature seasoned pork mixture and pan steamed and seared. We are under no obligation to tell you how long ago they were cooked. 

(W) The Starting Zone: Can’t choose just one? That’s okay, this selection comes with a miniature portion of all of our appetizers. Enough to share. Be wary of unsolicited guild invites.


Entrees

(SC) Not So Brutalisk Shortribs: Pork spareribs, smoked all day, finished off over an open flame, and slathered in our house Zergling BBQ sauce. A sure favorite. 

(SC) Lurker Belly Sandwich: Thick slices of pan-fried belly with jalapeno cheese, red tomatoes, greens, and a dash of Zergling BBQ sauce. Served on a crusty roll. Contains real Lurker. 

(SC) Fleet Bacon Burger: FLEET BACON! 

(SC) Eggs Baneling: Poached green eggs over english muffins with lurker belly and a spicy hollandaise sauce. 

(SC) The Fast Expand: You’ll feel your belly expand with our fried chicken over a Belgian waffle, topped with an over-easy egg! 

(D) The Carrion Farm: Let us roll you a new pizza, adorned with every meat you can imagine and grilled in our wood burning pizza oven, lit by actual hellflames. 

(D) Full Set of Greens: An entree-sized wedge salad, topped with bleu cheese, bacon, tomatoes, onion, and the envy of everyone else in your party. 

(D) Zombie dogs: Discarded beef comes back to life in a set of three gourmet hot dogs. Toppings change daily. Consult your server. 

(W) Firecracker Salmon: Seared sockeye salmon served with a firecracker aimed in the general direction of your table. If you can eat for longer than 15 seconds without standing, something good may happen in the next hour.  

(W) The Metzen Plate: Our signature breakfast! Pan-seared reindeer sausage, served with house potatoes, three eggs, cooked to your specification, and toast. (W) Nat Pagle’s Fish Tacos: Grilled Lurker Below with cabbage, onions, cheese, and cilantro ranch, all folded into a corn tortilla. Also comes with a 50% chance of getting an extra taco at the beginning of your meal.

Specialties 

(SC) The Dark Archon: An unholy dish featuring a flame-seared New York Strip in weight equal to your left arm and a macadamia nut crusted halibut fillet equal in size to your right. If you can finish in one sitting, you may gain mind control abilities.

(D) The Slaughtered Calf: Veal as you’ve never seen it before. An entire roasted calf is delivered to your table on a cart, Deckard Cain will pass by your table frequently to slice off portions at your request.

(W) Twin Porterhouses of Azzinoth: A 100% chance drop of two 48-oz Porterhouse steaks, aged for 10,000 years, rubbed with salt, pepper, and parsley, and seared over a 2,500 degree, green flame. After being grilled to perfection, each steak is ser 

ved on a replica Warglaive of Azzinoth, which is yours to keep. Are you prepared? 

(SC) The Sushi Rush: The actualization of renown artist Nicolas Chaussois’ Zerg Sushi design. Enjoy a custom selection of Prawnalisks, Bane Rolls, Tamagoyaki Hosts, Unagidralisks, Sushinfestors, California Lings, Nigiroaches, and Muta Makis. Selection limited to 200 supply.

Sides 

(W) Dr. Boom Biscuit: Our flakey house biscuit, topped with win and accompanied by two cheese “bombs” breaded with blue corn flour and deep fried. Accompanies literally all entrees. Limit one per customer. Exceptions may apply. 

(W) BRD Hot Pockets: Inserted into an absurd sleeve and microwaved according to the manufacturer’s directions. Guaranteed to be scalding hot on the outside and frozen on the inside. So good even Leeroy would wait for it.  

(W) Cheesy Poofs: Just like mother used to buy. Perfect for finishing up dailies. 

(D) Inna’s Green Beans: You thought Inna had one of everything, and you were right. Enjoy these garden fresh green beans, lightly steamed and sauteed with garlic, fresh cracked pepper, and crispy bacon pieces.  

(D) Uliana’s Seven-sided Smashed Potatoes: Sure to apply an explosion to your palate, enjoy our smashed potatoes prepared with cream, butter, bleu cheese, garlic, peppercorns, some more cheese, and, sure, some bacon. Why not? 

(SC) Basket of Deep Fried Larva: Just kidding, they’re french fries. Twice fried and tossed in garlic and rosemary.  

(SC) Basket of Deep Fried Sweet Larva: sweet potato fries, tossed in salt and pepper and served with a Zergling BBQ dipping sauce.

Desserts 

(SC) Stalker Delight: Emerge from the shadows for our sour cream blueberry pie. A la mode for $2.50 extra. It’ll be gone before Blink finishes. 

(D) Jar of Souls: A chocolate trifle fit for the Lords of Heaven and Hell. Enjoy layers of Devil’s Food Cake, chocolate creme fraiche, and Angel’s Food Cake. Topped with an orange slice and mint.  

(W) Vykrul Ice Creams: Secret recipes that were all thought to be destroyed during the Lich King’s reign. Made with pure, organic, wolvar milk.


Drinks 

(SC) Blaze of Glory: The mother of all milkshakes. A gallon of masterfully-crafted shake. Thick enough to require a spoon, creamy enough to make you swoon. Comes in chocolate, because that’s the only good flavor for milkshakes. 

(SC) Semi-Glorious: Half order of the Blaze of Glory. For sissies. 

(D) A Smash Hit: A shot of all 27 house liqueurs and whatever else we can find in our bar.  

(D) A Smash Hit (Cooperative): The same as A Smash Hit, but your friends are allowed to help. 

(D) Diet Kulle Aid: Don’t drink it.  

(W) Conjured Water: It’s water...that you didn’t have to get yourself.

I love this article so, so much. Pretty much none of these jokes make sense unless you've played the corresponding game (or hearthstone). One exception however, is the Fleet Bacon Burger's blurb of "FLEET BACON!" That comes from the long-discontinued podcast "The Creep" by Scott Johnson of Frogpants studios. He just kind of had a thing for yelling "FLEET BEACON!" I can't really recall why that was now, it may have just been that he had a hard time remember it. 

But yeah, I made up just about all of these myself, and I think I'd be willing to eat just about all of them. It's worth noting that the Twin Porterhouses of Azzinoth can be shared by several people, but there are only two warglaives per order, so the group will have to sort that out themselves, which seems appropriate. 

I'm not 100% happy with the variety of foods on the menu, however. It seems like the classes of food vary too greatly. We have chicken wings, fish tacos, biscuits, and top-tier steak all on the same menu. That just doesn't seem right.

Also, I showed this to a coworker and he made a great suggestion for a dessert. It was, "Dark Templar: A scrumptious 3 layer chocolate creme cake served free of charge when an entree is forgotten, delayed or burned in the kitchen as a last ditch effort to win the patrons repeat visit." I think the name needs a little work, but that's such a perfect idea! 

Heroes of the Storm: A First Look

At the time of this writing, Valve has raised over $7 million to be paid out as prize money for one single eSports tournament, the DOTA 2 International Championships 2014. It has also been a $21 million payday for Valve for minimal work. They have done so by selling the "Compendium", a digital companion book to the tournament. If a player buys it, they can make predictions for the tournament for prizes, vote on two all-star teams, and get in-game items and boosts. This is in addition to the warm and fuzzy feeling you get every time you contribute to eSports. It costs $10, 25% of which goes to the tournament prize pool and 75% goes into Valve's pocket. Furthermore, it's only been out for a couple weeks now and will continue to sell until the end of July, when the tournament ends. Marketing level: Genius. (Sidenote: Did I buy one? Absolutely!)

In an attempt to start getting in on those MOBA/Hero Brawler dollars, Blizzard has finally released a Technical Alpha of their entry to the genre: Heroes of the Storm. (Note: I posted a trailer of it back when it was still called Blizzard All-Stars, literally two years ago. see new trailer here.) By Technical Alpha, they mean the game is playable but there are still lots and lots of changes coming, large and small. Also, you can already give them your real money to unlock characters and items that will later be re-locked (and your money refunded). Heaven forbid they don't get that feature in ASAP.

Anyway, I've played it. I like it! My favorite things about it so far are the things that really make it different from other MOBAs. I like that the games are short. I like that the maps are varied. And I like that the heroes are recognizable to me. However, there are shortcomings, too. Lots of those.

Game Length: If I sit down to play a game of Starcraft, we're looking at a possibility of a 45-minute game. Probably only 15 to 25, sure, but it really could go as long as three-quarter of an hour. Or even an entire hour. A game of DOTA 2? Forty-five minutes, EASY. You have to plan on that before you start a match. It could run as long as an hour, maybe longer, but probably not. I have never had a game of Heroes of the Storm take 25 minutes. Boom. Quick and easy. I love that.

On the flipside, however, each victory or defeat feels very insignificant. But my instincts aren't telling me it's because of the time commitment; it's just a matter of scale. A game of Heroes of the Storm does not feel grand or epic. It just feels like a quick little game. Maybe that's because it's a lot easier to tell if you're ahead or behind in HotS than it is in Starcraft or DOTA. But there's something going on there. And it's ruining it for me a bit.

Maps: So far there are four (maybe five) different arenas (chosen randomly when you queue up), each with a different layout and a major map-specific mechanic in addition to your standard MOBA creeps/towers/lanes. The mechanics all revolve around either collecting something or trying to hold a location, resulting in a nice boost of some kind over your opponent (see in-text image). This kind of activity encourages more frequent teamfights, forcing the players to get up in each other's faces. If you try to ignore the mechanic, your team will undoubtedly lose, so there's even more encouragement. Additionally, these maps are much smaller than your DOTA or LoL maps. This also encourages teamfights, but not in an exciting way. It's in more of a you simply can't go anywhere without bumping into someone else kind of way. Not fun.

Heroes: When I play a game of DOTA, I think in these terms: "Oh! This character is based on [so and so] from Warcraft" (see here). Many, many characters are like this. It's understandable given the game's history, but it's still always in the back on my mind. In Heroes of the Storm, I get to play as the ACTUAL characters! It is extremely satisfying. The selection is currently rather low. And it isn't helping that Blizzard has decided to go the LoL monetization route (pay to unlock heroes) rather than the amazingly-awesome-community-contribution-driven way of DOTA (all heroes unlocked, pay for community-made customizable cosmetics). That means you can't even play as whoever you like at any given time (although you can try all heroes once before you have to buy them) with the exception of a rotating "Free Heroes of the Week" deal. So, that kind of sucks. But that could always change with time. I hope it does.

All in all, I'm very glad I get to be in the Alpha and be part of the process. I am very optimistic, but Blizzard has a long way to go to get this game up to a caliber that will compete with League of Legends or DOTA. I'm going to keep an eye on it and keep playing when there's a new update, but in the meantime I'm sticking with DOTA 2 when I have a MOBA itch to scratch.

Unless I'm short on time, of course.



See the show below!