First Lightning Round of 2019!

   The last thirty six hours have been kind of bonkers, beginning with a sleep-boner search for Caribbean food (that was eventually sated). Let's start.

0700 22 MARCH

   Wake up from a dream about finding some Caribbean food. I've already forgotten how this dream went, just that I was fucking somebody and then we sat down to eat some Caribbean food. I think it might have been at Marla's. The place looked like the inside of Marla's. Marla's is the jam, by the way, no fuck dreams required.

0815 22 MARCH

   Bagel day at the office. Slather on the cream cheese with a cement trowel, lactose intolerance be damned.

1330 22 MARCH
TRIESTE

   Go to lunch after spacing out at my job all day and decide to hit Trieste, which I cannot lavish more praise on. They are the best gyro in the Twin Cities and Heavy Table called them the best gyro downtown (which raises a valid point: maybe I ought to try to find Greek joints outside of downtown) (but Trieste is my jam).

1645 22 MARCH
THE WIENERY

   I was reading about veggie dogs all day because, you know, health shit. And there're veggie dogs out there that are basically made of wheat seitan, meaning they're just mock duck and I don't want  mock duck, I want a veggie dog.
   Well, turns out that that there are no such things as veggie dogs but there are tofu dogs and I fuckin' hate tofu but, you know, health shit. And I see the Wienery has a vegan tofu dog and I've been reading taste tests and reviews of all these different brands and I'm trying to remind myself of the lesson my friend, Cassie, taught me: It's not supposed to taste the same, it's supposed to taste good. So off I go to the Wienery and I ask the guy behind the counter, "Hey, man, honestly, how are the tofu dogs?"
   "Oh, they're all good."
   That is not an acceptable answer in my book. That tells me you either have no opinion or you are a shameless agent of capitalism. Whatever. I'm here, I'm looking at the fuckin' tofu dog, I got health shit, let's do this. Give me the slaw dog. The slaw vegan tofu dog.
   With a small fry.
   And a Mello Yello.
   Fuck all y'all, Mello Yello is delicious as hell.
   So the guy sets about making my order and the only other customer in there is chatting him up about the Mueller report and federal politics and asks him who he likes out of the democratic stable and he says, shit you not, "I don't care, man, anybody's better than this motherfucker. What we need to be doing is figuring out how we're going to survive as a species."
   Won't lie. I liked that answer.
   Couple minutes, he brings my order over. I looked at it. You can see from the pic that it doesn't have a "skin" on it and that's when I got apprehensive because I hate tofu but, you know, health shit.
   I bit into it and, holy shit, this wasn't bad. In fact, I had to pull it back and look at it to make sure this guy didn't trick-fuck me. Nope. This was definitely tofu but... it... tasted good (?) and not... like... tofu (?) and I... liked it (?). So I guess I like tofu dogs now. That's just a thing I like now.
   Finished my fries and my second Mello Yello before it got busy in there (four people walked in) (the Wienery is not a very big place), went to pay my bill, and asked the guy what kind of vegan dogs he was using and he says, "Let me check," and goes back to the cooler and pulls out a pack of these:
   Smart Dogs, by the makers of Tofu Pups, the consistently lowest rated vegan dog on every single taste test I read. So I have to call bullshit on the reviews. If you can get me to eat fucking tofu and not because of, you know, health shit, you're doing something right. So I'll be hunting down a pack of those, now.
   The Wienery also has a vegan cheesesteak and that, uh, planted a seed.

1730 22 MARCH
PIMENTO

   I had been craving Caribbean food all day and I stopped at Pimento to grab a beef patty, health shit be damned (I am an ouroboros of contradictions) and some beans and rice. This was my second visit to Pimento and the second time they fucked up my order, only this time instead of taking a half hour to make me a beef patty, they accidentally handed me a double order and I was all, "Guess this makes up for last time."
   I don't know. I had Harry Singh's only one time but I liked it better than Pimento. Or at least I think I did. Anyway, I had a beef patty and some left over beans and rice for breakfast and then I was super thirsty.

0700 23 MARCH

   Wake from a dream where I was with a couple coworkers at a second-run theater to see, I forget which movie already. I tweeted it.




Food dreams, two mornings in a row.

1600 23 MARCH
MAXWELL'S CAFE AND GRILL


   A week or so back, I passed by Sphynx Cafe and Maxwell's Cafe and Grill, which are next door to each other, and I thought, "Hey, there's something I could write about." And then I just didn't stop in there because I had lost all the feeling in my toes and I just wanted to go home.
   But it's sweltering tropical fifty three degrees (twelve Celsii for you metric prats) so I decided to dig into their menus. While I was leaning toward Sphynx because it's named Sphynx, it has a limited "sample menu" on Facebook that paints a pretty boring picture of what they serve and it doesn't open until four pm (that's four pm in Celsius) - I can't hold that last part against them since it took me forever to decide and I made it there about four pm anyway. But the deciding factor?
   Maxwell's has a cheesesteak.
   Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a cheesesteak in this town?
   The Finer Meat Co truck, The Wienery, Pappy's, Frank from Philly, Uncle Franky's, that's pretty much it. I don't count Caffrey's because Caffrey's cheesesteak tastes like neither cheese nor steak. Cup Foods is sort of weird in that they put lettuce, tomato, mayo, and pickles and raw onions on it, so it's basically a chopped up whopper. Franks-A-Million is...nah. Zakia is borderline OK.
   OK, so plenty of places do cheesesteak, but what about good cheesesteaks? Can Maxwell's do a good cheesesteak?
   Well...
   First of all, this thing was seven dollars (that's five pounds thirty) and came in two separate sandwiches (that's two in Celsius) which was bizarre but I guess I should have expected that from the guy who took my order, saw the pin on my jacket and asked, "Who is on your pin?"
   "Hm? Oh, that's John Coltrane."
   "Who is he? Is he politician or... ?"
   "Oh, no, he was a jazz musician. Saxophonist."
   "Is he dead?"
   "Yeah," and I had to think about this one, "he died in the sixties or seventies or..." I shrugged. (Note: It was sixty seven.)
   "Was he African American?"
   "Uh, yeah." And I should have been weirded out because, I mean, it's a picture of John Coltrane on the pin on my jacket and he can clearly... I just... it's just... I'm not coming from it from a racial thing, it's just a little bizarre that he didn't know who John Coltrane was.
   But you know, there I go expecting everybody to know everything and maybe I just try to shut up and be nice about shit.
   But, come on, how do you not know who John Coltrane was?
   GET BACK TO THE FUCKING SANDWICH, CHARLIE!
   So, first glance, this is going to be a flaky roll and then I bite into it and it's flaky on the outside and tough and rubbery on the inside.
   The menu read that this had steak, American cheese, green peppers, onions, red peppers, jalapeños, and mayonnaise. Well, dude skimped on the steak so I'm pretty sure my diet is safe. There were no red peppers. I could taste the jalapeños but there weren't a lot of them, thankfully; I'm not into a whole lot of heat. Mayonnaise made no impact on the flavor.
   But the real moment of first contact between man and extraterrestrial life beyond static in a satellite, we're talking face to face, we're talking touching, feeling, we're talking about merging bodies but not in that Natalie Portman movie way - Annihilation? I still haven't seen it but I read about it, I get the gyst - we're talking about in a loving way and not in a porny way, either, you sick fucks, I'm talking about embracing our celestial siblings as we should after a long journey to find one another, under the eternal expanse of heaven, under the gaze of our creator, we our one here on this plane as we are one on all planes, this is a familial embrace, this is DNA co-mingling, this is a cry of sweet release to know that we are not alone and all is full of love, that moment of first contact, my comrades, is the white American cheese.
   The only thing that saves this sandwich is the melted, gooey, white American cheese. If you remember what I said about Pappy's, it's that the white American cheese was essentially what put that cheesesteak head and shoulders above all the competition, including the lone beacon of Philadelphia authenticity, Frank from Philly.
   Does that mean this was a good (pair of) cheesesteak(s)? Not really. I mean a lot of the ingredients need to be changed. The ends of the rolls were tough though soft the further in I got. The steak tasted fine, what there was of it. The mayo made no difference. The veggies were sautéed but still crisp, that's a point in their favor. I mean, the cheese just saved this from being a horrible sandwich.
   Can I endorse Maxwell's?
   Mmm... I might have to go back sometime but I'm not really inspired to. I wouldn't rush to this one but I wouldn't knock it, either.

   But I'll tell you to get a tofu dog.
   I'm going to bike like a motherfucker tomorrow.
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA

Comments

Post a Comment