NYC restaurant Clinton St. Baking Company is known for its long lines. The reason for the never-ending wait? Some of the best pancakes in the city.
Story by Sarah Schmalbruch and editing by Ben Nigh
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The fast-food industry has a history of releasing bizarre items.
Many were found overseas.
Some of them came to the United States. For example, Pizza Hut's hot-dog pizza was spotted in Japan nearly ten years ago, according to Eater. It later made its way here, for better or for worse.
See some of these strange items.
Pizza Hut released this wacky item in Singapore. The two-crust pizza was essentially a pizza-in-a-pizza, with one crust stuffed with three cheeses and topped with turkey, ham, veggies, and salsa, and another stuffed with chicken sausage, cheese, and topped with zucchini, chicken, and sauce. There was a cherry in the middle, too.
In 2010, Eater reported Pizza Hut Middle East released a pizza complete with a crust featuring balls of cream cheese alternating with meatballs. The website noted that a now-removed commercial claimed the cream cheese was intended for spreading all over the pizza.
In 2012, Pizza Hut Middle East released another Crown Crust Pizza, this time featuring mini cheeseburgers in the crust. According to a commercial for the wacky product, it was topped with beef, fresh vegetables, and a special sauce specific to Pizza Hut. The commercial makes it look like the product was targeted towards people who craved cheeseburgers when they dined at Pizza Hut, as it featured a man ordering a cheeseburger. His friends laugh, but his waiter introduces him to this outrageous product.
We tried JumpGYM, a cardio class offered by New York City trampoline fitness studio JumpLife. We had assumed the class would be easy, but to our surprise, it was actually a really intense workout. There's a lot of jumping, and weights are incorporated to strengthen and tone. We never felt so uncoordinated.
Story by Lisa Ryan and video by Stephen Parkhurst
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There are dozens of Eco Cycle garages throughout Japan. They're underground, cylindrical places that automatically park your bike. One unit stores 204 bikes, and it costs $15 to $20 per month for a pass.
Story by Jacob Shamsian and video by Stephen Parkhurst
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With so many restaurants to choose from in New York City, picking the very best for a special night out can be a daunting task.
Luckily, we recently ranked the best restaurants in America, and several of them happen to be in New York.
Our rankings were based on several noteworthy lists from food critics, experts, and diners. You can read our full methodology here.
These are the best restaurants in New York City, according to our rankings:
SEE ALSO: The 50 best restaurants in America
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Chef: Markus Glocker
Chef: Mario Batali
Chef: Daniel Boulud, Aaron Bludorn (executive chef)
Las Grutas de Tolantongo is a natural spa resort in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. Thanks to the surrounding volcanic mountains, thermal springs spill out into incredible hot springs that hang off the side of a cliff.
Story by Chloe Miller and editing by Jeremy Dreyfuss, footage by Mariel de Viaje
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Russian artist Michael Zajkov makes freakishly realistic dolls and documents the process on his Instagram. He hand-makes the dolls and clothing. Though not for sale to the public, he shows them off at exhibitions where doll collectors snatch them up.
Story by Anjelica Oswold and editing by A.C. Fowler
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Ana Rius, Puerto Rico's health secretary, just announced the first Zika-related death on the island.
According to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a 70-year-old man who had been infected with Zika died in February from a drop in blood platelets, the part of the blood that is responsible for forming clots. This condition is called thrombocytopenia.
It's still unclear if or how the two issues converged to be fatal. While a low-platelet count can be deadly on its own if untreated, Zika is rarely fatal in healthy adults. According to the CDC report, the man died "of complications related to severe thrombocytopenia."
Puerto Rico, a US territory, has seen more than 600 cases of Zika. Seventy-three of those cases have been in pregnant women, which is of particular concern to health officials since the virus can cause severe birth defects like microcephaly, a condition in which babies being born with abnormally small heads. So far, 14 of the infected women have given birth to healthy babies, according to AP.
Another 16 Puerto Ricans are currently hospitalized with the virus. Health officials say that four may have developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, a temporary condition that can cause paralysis, as a result.
Zika is a fairly new virus that's been spreading throughout South America and some US territories. While it's been documented among US travelers, local transmission has been reported only in US territories. So far, there's no rapid diagnostic test to detect Zika in a newly infected person. And it has no cure.
Despite its severe potential consequences for babies, Zika is rarely deadly for healthy adults and typically causes only symptoms similar to those of having a cold or a fever.
Nevertheless, some scientists are concerned about Zika in North America, especially since only about 20% of infected people ever show symptoms. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine and the director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, told NBC News in January that he was "very worried about Zika."
While a single tourist is unlikely to be the cause of an outbreak in the US, some American cities could be vulnerable to Zika's spread, he said.
As of Friday, April 29, 44 countries and territories have reported local transmission of the virus:
Though unlikely, there is some cause for concern of Zika spreading in the US, as the World Health Organization has previously warned. The mosquitoes that can spread Zika are prevalent in many American states and thrive in tropical climates. This is why experts like Hotez have warned of it popping up in areas in the US with wet lowlands, warm temperatures, and species of mosquito that can transmit the virus.
The first reported case of a traveler with Zika in the US was in Texas. Since then, travelers have tested positive for the Zika virus in New York, Los Angeles, and several other countries outside the Americas.
DON'T MISS: Scientists are trying to use genetically engineered mosquitoes to stop the rapidly spreading Zika virus
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NOW WATCH: An untreatable virus that's linked to birth defects is now affecting the US
Matt Fox of Fine and Dandy demonstrates his quick and simple method for tying a bow tie.
Produced by Alana Kakoyiannis and Matthew Stuart
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The crab-stuffed, salmon-topped "Catch Roll" is the signature sushi dish at Catch restaurant in New York City.
But this isn't your average sushi roll — it's finished with a blow torch.
Story by Aly Weisman, editing by David Fang
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Whether you want to eat outside in the winter, or get some shade in the summer, Garden Igloo has got you covered. Literally.
The all-weather dome can act as a Jacuzzi cover, greenhouse, play space, garden shed, or a gazebo.
The stylish pop-up style igloo features a transparent, cold-resistant cover that is made from recyclable PVC plastic tubing. It's also super easy to assemble.
For sale by a Germany-based design company, the Garden Igloo ships worldwide for €899, or around $1,028.
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Thanks to Tuberides, we can all ride the LED-lined 'black hole' water slide Bad1 at an indoor pool in Bremerhaven, Germany.
Produced by Jenner Deal
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There are many secrets from the long lasting Cold War that only officials know about — and that includes the recently not-so-secret closed cities from the war on the border between Kazakstan and Russia.
These cities have rigid restrictions where specific authorization is required to visit, and no outsiders were aware of them until long after the Cold War ended, when they finally showed up on a map in the 1990's. Priozersk and Kurchatov, located in eastern Kazakstan, are two of the closed cities where Russian military tested hundreds of atomic bombs and weapons during the Cold War.
Photographer Nadav Kander visited the closed city of Kurchatov in 2011 with the help of a local contact. "The aesthetics of destruction have a really beautiful ring to me," Kander said in an interview at Flowers Gallery. With his images, he wrote a book entitled Dust. Below, see his eerie images of the radioactive ruins left in the closed cities.
SEE ALSO: This failed $5.3 billion nuclear power plant in Germany is now an amusement park
Source: Study
Rolls-Royce is known for not doing anything half-baked. So when they created a new set of luggage pieces, that philosophy transferred intact.
The six pieces of the Wraith Luggage Collection — two "Grand Tourer" valises, three "Long Weekender" bags, and a "Garment Carrier" — were designed by Rolls-Royce's Bespoke Design Studio to complement the company's cars.
Each bag can be customized by the customer, with design features that mimic those found in the actual Rolls-Royce Wraith. Yes, it is possible for your car and luggage to match perfectly, down to matching thread in the identical leather.
In fact, the collection got its name because it was "meticulously designed to be housed in the luggage compartment of a Rolls-Royce Wraith," Rolls-Royce told Women's Wear Daily. Basically, all the bags fit perfectly in the trunk.
Like the cars themselves, the collection is no bargain. It will retail for a total of $45,854 for all six pieces — which is more than the average entry-level car cost in 2015 (around $40,000, according to KBB). The pieces can also be purchased separately.
Of course, if you're willing to drop close to four dozen G's on a set of luggage, you're probably not going to be the one handling it most of the time. With that in mind, Rolls-Royce conferred with the experts ("head butlers from some of the world's most illustrious hotels") to design the collection. The result is an entirely functional, as well as stylish, set of luggage.
The collection is available at all Rolls-Royce dealerships.
SEE ALSO: How Rolex became the king of watches
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Beyoncé has been able to dominate airwaves and pop culture for years now, in no small part because of Jim Sabey, her marketing genius and manager.
But Sabey, the former head of worldwide marketing for Beyoncé's management company, Parkwood Entertainment, looks to be moving on from at least one thing: his Tribeca co-op apartment. He's listed the two-bedroom for $3.5 million.
The chic, minimalist 1,600-square-foot corner apartment is filled with light and boasts some high-tech amenities. Bonus: Some of Beyoncé's greatest hits were allegedly written here, establishing this apartment's own claim to fame.
It's listed with Deborah V. Hughes and Diane D'Ambrosio of Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
SEE ALSO: A former fashion exec is selling his historic New York City townhouse for $17 million
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Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and oftentimes it can lead to regret.
Some people have the philosophy that everything happens for a reason, and there is no point in having regrets.
But for so many of us, looking back on our lives can lead us to linger on one poignant moment or period when we wish we had done things differently, and that nagging question, "What if ...?," plays on repeat in our heads.
"This may sound a little melodramatic, but no matter how happy you are, at my age your regrets are countless," writes Quora user Gary Teal in response to the question, "When people look back on their lives, what are common regrets they have?" "You have made decades' worth of little miscalculations you can't completely erase from your memory, as well as a number of big mistakes that made life permanently harder."
Quora user Bradley Voytek points to a national survey about the regrets of a typical American, which found 13 common sources for regret. They are, in order: romance, family, education, career, finance, parenting, health, "other," friends, spirituality, community, leisure, and self.
Vaughn Bell at Mind Hacks notes that there are two ways people frame their regrets: The things they did that they wish they hadn't, and the things they wish they had done but didn't.
"The difference between the two is often a psychological one, because we can frame the same regret either way — as regret about an action: 'If only I had not dropped out of school;' or as a regret about an inaction: 'If only I had stayed in school.'
"Despite the fact that they are practically equivalent, regrets framed as laments about actions were more common and more intense than regrets about inactions, although inaction regrets tended to be longer lasting," Bell writes.
Here are some of the most common regrets as chronicled by Quora users (answers have been edited for clarity):
SEE ALSO: The guy whose wife famously said women can't have it all tells his side of the story
"I regret that I never fell in love with someone who was in love with me, when that would have been easy for me to do.
"I regret being like an old song sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie: 'Must I go bound and you so free, Must I love one who doesn't love me, Must I be born with so little art, As to love the one who would break my heart?'" —David Kahana
"For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to have kids. But in my younger years, I foolishly assumed that unlike certain accomplishments like a career, the marriage and kids thing would just happen.
"Well, they didn't. I dated plenty of people but never even thought about making family a priority. Then, in my late 30s, a bout with ovarian cancer left me permanently infertile.
"I think about the kids I never had every day, several times a day. I have a great relationship with my nieces and nephews, and volunteer at a children's hospital on a regular basis, but it's just not the same to be around other people's kids. I would love to adopt or be a foster mother, and hopefully be in a financial and domestic situation that would make this feasible one day.
"But again, not the same. And it pisses me off when people say, "You're lucky you don't have kids, they're so much work, blah blah blah." Yes, but a lot of things in life that are worthwhile are also so much work.
"I think the mothering instinct is so strong in some women that the knowledge that one will never get a chance to give birth and raise their own child goes beyond regret. One that a bar chart cannot capture. I can deal with most of my other regrets in life but am having a hard time dealing with this one." —Caroline Zelonka
"I regret not choosing to spend more time with my parents in my twenties. I lost my mother in 2000, and I feel the loss of the friendship we never had.
"She was very demanding, very strict, and from the perspective of a young man, very unreasonable. It turned out, as I live through middle age, that most of the ideals I have today ended up being the ones she put on me.
"Sometimes, after a setback, I feel the impulse to call her, and in the second or so that it takes for me to realize she isn't alive to speak to any longer, I realize how much I still need her.
"You cannot negotiate with death. It is final, often sudden, and personal. The last night I had with her, at a hospice in Chicago, I was exhausted and asked her if she minded if I went home. She immediately whispered that absolutely, I should rest, and to be careful driving home. I curled her fingers around the nurses call button, and kissed her on the forehead. I remember I felt some relief that I was leaving.
"I know it didn't make a difference, leaving at that time, or leaving a few hours later. She was going to die either way. But reflecting on that moment today I know then that I didn't understand how precious those minutes were, and how a door was being closed that would never open again." —Jim Wagner
Anthony Bourdain has spent roughly the past 15 years in the limelight as a television personality exploring the world, but before that he spent two decades in New York City kitchens, culminating with a stint as the executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles.
Business Insider recently spoke with Bourdain, and he told us that when he looks at the New York restaurant scene today, he's amazed.
"It's come so, so, so, so far in just my lifetime," he said. "So much of what we have now would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, 25 years ago when I was still in the business."
He embraces what a generation of young hipsters have created in Manhattan and the outer boroughs, a culture that has also manifested in other parts of the country.
"You've got tattooed young people all over the city and all over the country making their own sausages, curing their own meat, and rotting things in their cellars, and they're acutely aware of the seasons and are aping obscure subgenres of like Basque-specific restaurants," he said. "It is a wonderful thing."
When Bourdain looks at the New York food scene today, he sees a significant portion of customers who care about the chefs and cooks making their food, and this has in turn made these customers more adventurous.
Celebrity chef culture was in full swing in the '90s, but not in the same way it is now. The 1991 novel "American Psycho" and its 2000 film adaptation, for example, famously satirizes the high-end restaurant culture of the time by having characters obsessed with getting a reservation at the latest hot restaurant, simply because it was the popular thing to do.
What Bourdain is saying is that the same fervor for restaurants exists now, but for better reasons.
He explained that the "admittedly bizarre and frequently hilarious celebrity-chef phenomenon" has allowed chefs "to cook as well as they know how, because people are interested in their best game now. They're not showing up at their restaurant saying, 'I'd like the chicken.' They come in wanting to try Eric Ripert's food or Daniel Boulud's food and they don't go in there with a specific menu item in mind. I think that's a really important change in the landscape over the last 20 years."
Contributing to this change in tastes is the fact that the current batch of 18-35-year olds, millennials, are more interested in "experiences" like a meal at a fine restaurant than a big purchase like a luxury handbag, studies like one from Eventbrite have found. And New York City, with its endless supply of restaurants and young people with disposable income, is the perfect breeding ground for a new wave of foodies.
This generation has also grown up with fears of processed and genetically modified foods, stoked by books like "Fast Food Nation" and films like "Food, Inc.," which has enhanced the power of buzzwords like "artisanal," "locally sourced," and "non-GMO organic."
Bourdain finds this to be the main downside among hot places in New York. "You'll hear the name of the farm, the name of the farmer, what my cattle was fed," he said. "I don't need to know all that." But it's a small price to pay, he said.
"I'm glad that people are aware and think about these things, and I'm glad when waiters and servers know," Bourdain said. "And I'm glad that chefs are making the real effort to get the best quality ingredients and that the public is more and more likely to appreciate it and even understand it."
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NOW WATCH: At Sam Adams, it’s OK to tell your boss ‘f--- you’
You already know the dangers of carrying too large a wallet (and of keeping it in your back pocket).
In that same vein, we thought we'd go over what you should actually keep in your wallet on a day-to-day basis.
And, in the spirit of minimalism, it's honestly not a whole lot.
You probably only need:
Notice what's missing? No rewards cards, no punch cards, no gift cards, and nothing else that you don't use on a daily basis. Not even a Social Security card.
Financial blog Dumb Little Man advocates a 1-2-2 rule (one ID, two forms of payment, and two insurance cards) as the most someone should carry around in their wallet, and we're pretty on board with that.
Once you slim down your wallet, it'll be easier to find what you're looking for, and your life will be just that much simpler.
SEE ALSO: Why luxury watches cost so much money
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NOW WATCH: The only sneaker styles you can get away with at the office
If you are a woman and you love your smartphone, you are not alone.
Marketing startup Influence Central interviewed 500 women about how they use their smartphone, a redux of the same survey they did in 2002.
And the results show that women are having a love-affair-type relationship with these devices, using them in both predictable, and surprising, new ways.
SEE ALSO: 9 ways that men and women see things differently at work
Source: CDC
If you're like me, you're used to popping some broccoli into a boiling pot of water until it's cooked.
Unfortunately, that method removes a lot of the essential nutrients that make broccoli worth eating in the first place, including loads of B vitamins and vitamin C.
Even the potentially cancer-fighting proteins called glucosinolates break down when they're overcooked by being boiled.
To figure out a better, simpler way, we chatted with Dan Souza, the executive editor of Cook's Science at America's Test Kitchen and one of the authors of "The Science of Good Cooking."
His solution? Put your broccoli in the microwave. That doesn't mean just plopping it on a plate and throwing it in there, though.
"You're essentially steaming it inside there," Souza told Business Insider. "There's really no place for nutrients to go. it stays in the vegetable."
Steaming is a great alternative to boiling broccoli. A November 2015 study evaluated different cooking methods for vegetables including broccoli, and came to the conclusion that steaming is the best way to preserve and enhance the nutrition in fresh broccoli.
Souza said his microwave method is even better than steaming the veggies over boiling water, when it's still possible for some of the nutrients to leach into the water.
Plus, there's the ease of just popping it in the microwave as opposed to taking the time to wait for water to heat up on the stove.
RELATED: A popular way of cooking broccoli is leeching potentially cancer-fighting compounds from it
NEXT: There's a scientific reason why it's so hard to cook the perfect cup of rice
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