So I've been on this Marie Kondo kick lately, deciding to finally rid of myself of shit I've been lugging around / accumulating over the last twenty years, and I finally filled two big paper boxes of books, CDs, DVDs, and even audio books that I am just ♫never♫ in the mood to revisit.
The Dark Knight? See you.
Joker? So long.
Suspiria '18? Gone.
Both Deadpool movies? Both are out.
Rated R and Songs for the Deaf? Can't hear you, son, never could.
These and a bunch of books I'm never in the mood for got taken over to the Half Price Books in Saint Paul around noon where they told me it'd be a three hour wait before they could make me an offer. They gave me a brief rundown of the process and I said OK and Kath and I went out looking for something to do. I won't bore you (or embarrass the owner) with the account of the "thrift" "store" we found ourselves in but we had to kill time and we eventually found ourselves snaking through Burnsville until we were back in Eagan and Kath wanted to know if I was getting hungry, if we should find an Arby's. I said it didn't have to be an Arby's. In fact, with the way things were looking, any place that had some kind of food they were willing to part with for money would work, including just walking up to a stranger's house.
I pulled up Google Maps and found this place called Brianno's Deli-Italia, actually only a matter of blocks from us - Eagan blocks, mind you, and we made it there in three left turns to mark our first Eagan entry, which feels weird somehow, like I feel like I should have an Eagan entry already but OK.
The outside looked like this:
Could be legit.
We masked up, went inside, and I was struck instantly by the smell of hot marinara and the sight of a sizeable marquis. They had three aisles of Italian-American food like pastas and sauces and peppers and antipastos and candies and they could make you a pizza right there or sell you a frozen one to take home.
I got the half-size Italian sub (three salty pork meats - the menu online doesn't say which but I believe capicola was one, salami might have been another - and two cheeses - again, online menu doesn't say but I remember one was provolone - with lettuce, tomato, onion, and a basil vinaigrette after some much much waffling about and a blood orange sody pop and Kath had her eye on the lasagna but went with a half-size meatball sub and a Diet Coke. I got a bag of Sicilian blood orange candies. They had a sign there offering a ten percent discount to customers with vaccination cards and Kath, having just scored her second vax (and my poor darling was down for the count Thursday) (I'm still at the bottom of the wait list), got us a discount.
We went out to the bench seating and unwrapped our "half" sandwiches that were the size of Nerf footballs and tucked in.
The very first thing I noticed was the bread. The crust looked hard and flaky but was actually soft and elastic. The bread itself was dense but not cake-like. Both sandwiches came with a pair of pickled pepperoncini and, since Kath wasn't about hers, I used the four of them to flavor my sandwich because, hey, this was a good fucking sandwich but I like a little kick from that pepperoncini juice.
The meat was salty and, since you know I beat this drum until the head wears thin, I think you really don't need more than two salty pork meat on a sandwich but this worked out OK. The two cheeses? I've punched a hole in the head of that drum and, really, combining cheeses just results in the flavor of "dairy" but, again, this worked. First of all, the creamy flavor (not texture, flavor, yes, I'm sure of this) of the cheese cut through the saltiness of the meats and while the lettuce...
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Oh - 
Apple don't grapple the Mapple, rudeboy.
OK, so while the [looks over shoulder, clears throat] lettuce didn't truly add anything, the tomatoes added some sweetness but the onions, seemingly overpowered by the basil vinaigrette, offered no bite with their alium. The basil vinaigrette? Honestly, I wasn't feeling basil from it. It was present, sure, and while I couldn't place the flavor, if I go through my flavor rolodex, basil isn't what I was picking up.
But none of this is saying this wasn't a good sandwich. It hosted some wonderful flavors in my mouth that were boosted further by the pepperoncini juice, which was just a little highlight in there, really made it pop.
Overall, the meat, cheese, bread, tomato, and pepperoncini juice are the draw for this sandwich - you put those five together and you have a goddamned winner on your hands; the onion tasted as onion-y as the basil vinaigrette tasted basil-y, which is to say they're subtle - they're not bad, they're subtle; and you know how I feel about iceberg lettuce.
I'd say give them your money based on that it took Kath two years to finish her meatball sub. For real, I should have taken a picture of that. That goddamned thing could pass for a literal submarine. Homie at the counter even hooked her up with plasticware because their meatball sub has that reputation, the "fall-apart" reputation. I looked at her sandwich, which she had to eat sideways at first, and it wasn't a row of meatballs, no, this motherfucker was full-sized meatballs stacked on top of each other. It was a wonder to behold. And she promoted herself to its boss.
Most half sandwiches stand under nine dollars tall, most whole sandwiches stand only fifteen dollars tall. You will be satisfied by the half sandwich unless you haven't eaten since Bernie ran for president. You might be pretty hungry in that instance.
Anyway, the story ends with us going back to Half Price Books where they gave me $34.55 for the two boxes of crap I acquired mostly from lost & found bins, the five dollar rack at Target, and through radio station promos.
Date night is paid for, meine kleine tyrannjugend.
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