It's like this, meine kleine Tyrannjugend, sometimes, Daddy Charlie gets busy and can't write about sandwiches. Sometimes, Daddy Charlie has to go out and live his life for himself and he can't satisfy your every petty whim. Maybe he's eating veggie dogs at IKEA (don't), maybe he's eating pussy all weekend (do), maybe he's not even eating, maybe he switched to a liquid diet. Maybe he's watching only movies that have that Bowie song about putting out fires with gasoline that he thinks is from that cat people movie but he can't remember which cat people movie: Was it Cat People or was it Sleepwalkers? He doesn't know, he's not seen either of them. He's seen Cat Women Of The Moon and he knows for sure it wasn't that one.
Look, you know all this shit is going to be turkey, anyway. I've been adhering more strictly to my pollotarian diet. You know I had a tinga burrito for lunch today? That's chicken, at least. But I gotta tell you, pollotarian sandwiches are boring as fuck. You know I can't find anybody that does a cornish game hen sandwich? Or a duck sandwich? I'm half tempted to get a big fuck-off Rambo knife and go out killing some fucking pigeons just for the variety. And I'm only half kidding.
Wedge Table, 20 July 2019
That's a turkey portabello melt, listed as:
smoked provolone, smoked turkey, ginger garlic aioli, marinated portobello mushroom, and spinach on a baguette
It's OK. I'm calling bullshit on the aioli. First of all because I cringe whenever anybody says "garlic aioli" because garlic is already part of the name. Aioli is a portmanteau of the Italian words for garlic - alio - and oil - olio. Secondly, I don't recall tasting the ginger but, hey, you know how many herbal aiolis I've made where I realized I wasted my money?
Then there's the portabello which I figured I'd take a big chance at the high school dance on and, well, I'm not a mushroom guy. One day when I was five, I realized I didn't like mushrooms anymore. I've been trying to get back into them since my late twenties because, you know, chicken marsala is the jam but... I can't.
The smoked provolone was noticeable but not memorable.
The turkey was fine.
Popeye's, 29 July 2019
Sometimes you're craving Popeye's. For me, this is at least once every other week. You know I had Popeye's on Sunday after celebrating IKEA Catalog Day with Kafe Nasty? And then I felt grody and I couldn't sleep? Yeah.
Well, last Monday, I wanted some goddamned Popeye's but I didn't want a two piece and biscuit. I got there and I saw the sign for their chicken sandwich which I can't remember if it had the nice price but I got it.
If you look at that picture, you have a pretty good idea of how it tasted.
I don't know why I keep going to Popeye's.
Lowry Hill Meats, 5 August 2019
I finally got the French Exit yesterday.
Remember how I said Popeye's made me grody on Sunday? Well, I didn't get to sleep until two thirty, woke up at four thirty, and by five thirty decided to just call in to work. By six, the upstairs neighbor decided to start hammering the shit out of their walls, construction started across the street an hour later, and the garbage trucks were running like bumper cars in the alley between those events. I should've just gone to work.
Eventually I got to sleep, woke up at ten thirty, then went out to pay some bills and run some errands and shit, and I stopped by Lowry Hill Meats and said, "Fuck it, let's get the French Exit," listed on the menu as:
Choice of salami, turkey or ham - or all three - on baguette with mustard, aioli & pleasant ridge reserve
I had to look up what Pleasant Ridge Reserve is. I guessed it was the cheese and I thought they just left the last word off. No. That's the name of the cheese.
It was good. I mean that's all I can say about it. I had to put the (unseeded) jalapeño slices on like I have to with most of their sandwiches.
Place is a butcher shop so the turkey was done right. The aioli was tangy and the coarse ground mustard was sweet. The bread was fine. I'd recommend it, I'd even order it again, I'm just not that enthusiastic about it. I'll still encourage you to give them your money.
The Nicollet Diner, 6 August 2019
Before we get started, I saw the tuna melt on their menu.
Two things about that: First, last time I got food poisoning was from a tuna melt. Second, I'm not the sort of easily confused dojikko that pays eleven dollars for a tuna melt. I don't give two squirts of hungover piss after a night of Everclear and radishes if you put lettuce and tomato on it, no tuna melt costs eleven dollars.
Now we can get started.
Back in the dark days of the Kensington, me and Homegirl June had a nice little platonic thang going on and one day, each of us with a couple bucks to spare, we decided to have a nice little platonic date and go over to the recently opened Nicollet Diner and split a patty melt. June insisted on onion rings on the side.
And we're in the middle of this nice little platonic dinner date when I got a text from Weird Lia who I think might have been in heat at the time, otherwise she wouldn't have texted me, and my thirsty ass said, "Hey, Homegirl June and I are over at the Nicollet Diner," and, next thing you know, in comes Weird Lia, a true goth in hot weather, with nothing to say but eager to get on our onion rings.
I think I got laid that night. Not trying to be uncouth, just that's how things went with me and Weird Lia. She'd get a bug up her ass and I lived right next door to her in the Kensington and my pullout game was tight, why not give me a jingle jangle?
All the while, Homegirl June is keeping her mouth shut because she's like that. She hated Dani (who was so shitty she doesn't get a fun nickname) but she kept her mouth shut because I was into her. Then, as soon as Dani did me wrong for the last time, it was shit talk à gogo at the Kensington because Homegirl June had some massive William-Wallace-killing shit to get off her chest and, back in the day, when Homegirl June was fueled by a near-IV intake of cheap riesling, funny car grade rum, and light cigarettes, she was like a supercut of all of Christine Baranski's scenes from all four seasons of Cybill but if Christine Baranski had a razor blade hidden between her knuckles.
When I stopped fucking about with Weird Lia, Homegirl June talked some sshhiitt, starting, characteristically, with Weird Lia's appearance and moving on to the weirdness that made Weird Lia... weird. Like the time she called Homegirl June looking for a ride home from Saint Paul... And Homegirl June had to tell her, "I live in Duluth. I've lived in Duluth for a year and half now. You know this."
Whenever I pass by the Nicollet Diner in that rapidly gentrifying corner of Loring Park, I remember that sunny summer afternoon when two marginally employed neighbors turned friends went to the corner diner to split a patty melt and then a boring goth chick showed up and tried to eat our onion rings. And then I look at the menu and I remember that that place is way too fucking expensive.
Except tonight.
It's hard to call anything too expensive after I drop twelve hundred dollars at the bar yesterday.
Relax, it was on airfare and lodging. My first trip to Europe is a go.
I stopped in there and looked over the menu and, yeah, they have a grilled chicken pesto sandwich but I figured I would give their Rachael try because I've had it up to my chin with disappointing pesto sandwiches. And I could always get the patty melt but I didn't because I can't relive the past. Homegirl June is still up in Duluth. Weird Lia went back to her dimension. And while I'm pretty sure one patty melt won't kill me, still, you know?
So, how was it?
Well? I can tell you it took a fucking hot minute to order. A TV over the counter played this game show where these people were in a dune buggy on a bridge and I thought it was Survivor but then they were talking about feelings and being in "Paradise" and I was like, "Oh, is this that Love Island horseshit?" and then my Twitter trends tells me about this dude named Jake reckoning with his past and I guess I was watching The Batchelor: Paradise Edition or something. Like that's how long it took to get a server and I had to let that go because the trainer, a skinny woman with a blue buzzcut, with the server, an eager ballcapped gentleman, explained that the server was being trained and homie must have been new because she had to explain to him what a Rachael was.
I got that with a Dr. Better by Minne Soda, which just tastes like a flat cherry cinnamon pop.
Rachael came and the first thing I noticed was I had to say hello to the sauerkraut. Then that the turkey was bland as fuck. Then this other server asked me if I had lettuce and tomato on my sandwich and I said no and he tried talking some shit to the kitchen or something and the cook (who kept calling it a "turkey Rachael" which is honestly the newest abominable combo I've heard) and I had to explain to him that, no, the sandwich was made correctly, and then the cook told me he was training the kid next to him so it was everybody's first day I guess and I just let go of the part where I dropped thirteen dollars on a mostly flavorless Rachael, nineteen after flat soda pop and sales tax, twenty three after tip.
So, recap: Pop in. Get ignored. Watch The Batchelor thinking it's Survivor. Get the new guy with the manager who says "cool beans". Get a glass of flat fountain pop. Get a flavorless sandwich. Get a dumbass question from not my server. Find out my sandwich was made by another FNG. Get the bill from the trainer before I eat my sixth fucking French fry, "There's no rush!" Think to myself, "You want me to not feel rushed when you drop off the bill before I even eat my pickle?" Get up to pay the bill only to be greeted by the trainer who says, "I was just coming to get you!" Think, "Because you saw my glass was empty?" Left a Lincoln on the tip line despite the absent service and bland food in the hopes that it gets split between the two FNGs even though I suspect it won't.
This is a neighborhood spot where staff know their regulars by name. (Not a big deal. They know my name at the Forest.) And they have regulars because they do right by them. But I don't know. I can't recommend this place based on tonight, even though and especially since I had the anomaly of two FNGs on the clock, and I can't recommend them on a five year old memory of hanging out with my friend. Maybe I'll get a bug up my ass and try them again sometime. I'm just not in a hurry to.
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