The Truth About the Poached Eggs Murder

Rest in peace, Helen Menicou

While visiting San Francisco yesterday, I stopped into an old favorite restaurant: The Pinecrest Diner. It had been over a decade since my last visit, but I found the hash browns as delicious as ever.

Pinecrest, circa 2026
[Photo credit: P. Kafasis]

While there, however, I noticed something curious. No matter how much I scoured their menu, I could find no prohibition on poached eggs. That might seem an odd thing to look for, unless you know the Pinecrest’s infamous history. In 1997, it was the site of a homicide which purportedly took place over poached eggs.

When I was visiting the restaurant more regularly back in the 2000s and early-to-mid 2010s, I heard whispers of this story, but it very much had the smell of an urban legend. Still, there was no denying that poached eggs really were expressly prohibited by the menu. Here’s a picture I managed to dig up on Tripadvisor:

Pinecrest’s menu, circa 2018
A previous Pinecrest menu
[Photo credit: FrancescaM]

Zooming in, it reads “We regret we cannot prepare poach or boiled eggs.”


Assuming we can trust the photo’s baked-in date, the prohibition lasted at least until 2018.

I don’t even eat eggs, but during late night visits, I felt something akin to the call of the void. I would fantasize about making a seemingly oblivious request for the forbidden dish, or endorsing the diner to others by suggesting that they “try the poached eggs!”.

After my recent meal, I decided I should learn the true story. A quick web search led to a 2021 piece Katie Dowd wrote, which provides a thorough history of this incident. She details how shift manager Helen Menicou and cook Hashem Zayed really did have a fight about a special order for poached eggs, and spells out the fatal results. It was a terrible waste of two different lives.

Despite that tragedy, the diner itself has lived on. I’m not sure what their current policies are regarding special orders of items not on the menu, but it’s probably better safe than sorry. While I can certainly recommend you visit Pinecrest if you’re in San Francisco, I cannot in good conscience recommend that you try the poached eggs.

More Frank Talk 

Bari Weiss is just not good.

Last week, I enjoyed the bracing words of Scott Pelley, uttered not long before he was terminated after years with CBS News. Now, veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft has spoken up about Bari Weiss:

“Everything she’s touched has turned to shit. Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong. And I don’t think she’s showed any talent for this position. She’s only fulfilling other people’s agendas.”

Worth noting, Nick Bilton won’t be able to fire Kroft from 60 Minutes, as Kroft retired from the program back in 2019.

More Fake Legal Citations 

Three years on, LLM flaws remain.

Lawyers are in trouble for citing imaginary legal cases.

A federal judge in Mississippi has punished all four lawyers on opposing sides in a civil trial and canceled the proceedings after some of them, relying on artificial intelligence, cited fake legal cases in court filings.

Two of the lawyers have been barred for two years from appearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi for their conduct, while all four were removed from the case and fined.

It’s not the first time. A.I. can provide useful first drafts, but you really, really need a human checking its work.

New Halls Encouragements Just Dropped

These may, in fact, have dropped many years ago.

Eight years ago, I first noted the phrases printed on the wrappers of Halls cough drops. When I was recently mildly under the weather again, I purchased some more Halls, and found a somewhat updated list of encouragements.

A Halls cough drop wrapper

This newer wrapper design is a step backwards in terms of legibility, but given what’s written on the wrappers, that may be a feature. Here’s a full list:

A Complete List Of Slogans Seen on Halls Cough Drops Purchased in 2026, along with dumb responses I thought of while seeking to avoid a coughing fit

  • Seize the day.
    I’m sick! I’d really rather not.

  • Go get it!
    Please calm down.

  • Go for it.
    Thank you. Still, my ambition is not that high right now.

  • Get through it.
    That’s much more reasonable.

  • Conquer today.
    No, that’s too much again! How about “Survive today”?

  • Don’t wait to get started.
    I think I will.

  • Put your game face on.
    OK, but keep me on the bench today, huh?

  • March Forward!
    Why is “Forward” capitalized?

  • A PEP TALK IN EVERY DROP™
    It’s been at least eight years. Isn’t it time you registered this trademark? Stop yelling and go ® that ™.

  • Turn “can do” into “can did!”
    Alright, I’ve ignored the seemingly random usage of periods and exclamation points until now. But this really ought to have a period at the end, or the exclamation point should move outside the (sickeningly straight) quote.

  • Impress yourself today.
    I’ll be impressed if I don’t crack a rib.

  • Tough is your middle name.
    Actually, it’s not.

  • You’ve survived tougher.
    OK, that’s probably true.

  • Nothing you can’t handle.
    As is that.

  • Take charge and mean it.
    More like “Nap and mean it”.

Ultimately, I did indeed survive my mild cold and now I’m putting it to good use as content for this site.

Thousands of Dollars of Misdirected Food 

Perhaps pictograms would have helped their box band-aid.

In Boston, Massachusetts, Brigham and Women’s hospital can be found at 75 Francis Street. Less than a mile away, the residence of Frumie Burns sits at 75 Francis Street in the town of Brookline. As you might imagine, this has often resulted in confusion.

Once an anxious young couple came to the door and said that they were looking for the fertility clinic. Shouldn’t they have asked if they were at the hospital first? Since when do you ring the doorbell to enter a clinic? Wasn’t my professional attire of cut-offs, a tee shirt and flip flops another hint that they were in the wrong place? Another time an elderly gentleman handed me his paperwork for a colonoscopy before even saying hello.

I think in that situation one is obligated to perform the colonoscopy. Just use whatever’s at hand.

In recent years, however, the bigger issue has been the many, many food deliveries coming to the wrong place. The local wildlife has no doubt appreciated when they were left without even ringing the doorbell.

A squirrel enjoying some food that had been left at the wrong location.

Burns’s piece about her experiences was shared with me by friend-of-the-site Oliver Y., and it’s since come up in multiple conversations I’ve had with others. Now, I recommend it to you.

Problems the Pope Missed 

Of course, they’re not listening to the Pope anyway.

Following in the footsteps of Pope Leo XIV, Brian Phillips recently collected some of the most grating problems with modern technology. I agreed with nearly all of them, but none more so than #30.

30. I just unsubscribed from your email updates because I receive too many emails from you. You do not need to send me an additional email confirming my cancellation.

Over at my day job, the unsubscribe flow for our mailing list is built to do the job with one click and zero additional emails.

An unsubscribe page that reads “You’re unsubscribed. We’re sorry to see you go, but we understand. In the unlikely event that you mis-clicked, you can be one of the only people in history to immediately resubscribe to a mailing list.”

As you can see, we do offer a resubscribe option, which mostly just pokes fun at the idea that such a thing could be useful.

Adopt-A-Bridge 

It’s going to require a bit more work than picking up some litter.

Boy has the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers got a bridge to sell you give to you for the low, low cost of dismantling it and re-assembling it in a new location of your choosing. Two, actually!

Cursed Bread 

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

Do you want to get haunted? Because baking sourdough bread with yeast from the guts of a 5,000-year-old frozen mummy is how you get haunted.

Tell Us How You Really Feel, Scott 

“Enjoy the bagels”

After newly hired executive producer Nick Bilton made the laughable claim that CBS’s editor in chief Bari Weiss “loves 60 Minutes”, correspondent Scott Pelley had strong words:

“She is murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” the correspondent said. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.”

Mr. Pelley added: “She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”

He’s not wrong.

Not a Good Pitch 

Even as a marketing stunt, this failed.

The Enhanced Games are a rather gross pseudo-Olympics where athletes are permitted to use performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Amusingly, at the inaugural event last month, clean athletes competing alongside those taking PEDs won several events. Enhanced Group, the company behind this grotesquerie, nevertheless helps to sell plenty of peptides, testosterone, and other drugs. I’m not sure they made a very convincing sales pitch.