OK, hold up.
It's an Italian sub without tomato but with...
OK, that's just fucked up. Are we ready to wrap this up?
No no no, where do we actually begin?
First of all, Kieran's Kitchen is located in this place called - Are you ready for this? - Food Building, which I thought was an artisan market but Kath knew better and it's basically just a collective of local food... makers? There are butchers and bakers and cheese... makers? I'm not looking up what a cheese maker is called, you can do that on your time.
Anyway, I wake Kath up and we have to do the grocery shopping after I wrap up the laundry and I've been wanting to check this place out, under the impression that I will find a thirty dollar cheese wedge and pass on a sixteen dollar jar of jelly. Alas we find the actual market part is small when we get there which Kath says she kind of figured and I say we don't need any of this... stuff, let's just go to Cub.
Kath says hold up, why don't we grab something to eat from the deli counter before we go, after all, we did come all the way up to Nordeast. I got a chai latte (The season is right around the corner, fuckos!) that was strangely all foam and the NE Italian, listed on the menu as...
Oh, who gives a shit? It's an Italian sub, aint it? You can't go wrong. Even the $3.99 buddies you pick up from Cub are good. Kath got a bacon something-or-other burger. Then we waited a day and a half while I lifted my mask and drank the foam off my chai.
We finally got our food and went outside and sat down and I look at my sandwich and... Is this because I'm wearing my sunglasses? Why does my ciabatta look so dark? Dude, is this fucking rye? What kind of monst- I mean, OK, calm down, could also be genius. Are you trying to sell me an Italian on rye? I guess you did because... Come on, man, why is the bread so dark?
[sigh] OK. I guess this is just where we are in twenty twenty one. Proud Boys knifing people over COVID vaccines, global warming burning up the planet, the Taliban occupying US absence, and now an Italian on [takes bite]
Wait.
This isn't rye.
This is actually... really... fucking good.
To start, that ciabatta? That's just a ciabatta. It had a stiff but forgiving outside and an almost, hand-to-Christ, cakey, springy inside. And that's just to start.
The fat on this sandwich? It was creamy, almost spreadable. You know how sometimes you're eating a sandwich and you find a fat deposit among your meat and it's tough and rubbery? The fat coming off this meat was as close to butter as it could possibly be without altering its atomic composition.
The entire time, I can't stop saying how good this is and Kath is going on about how, despite the price tag (two sandwiches plus two drinks plus tip equaled forty dollars), she was in love with her burger. She said that she could tell that this was made by people who gave a shit as opposed to people who simply do it for the paycheck. She could tell that the people who baked the bread, who ground her beef, who cured her bacon, who... made? her cheese were enthusiasts who gave a shit. And I could tell the same thing about my Italian sub. The people who pickled the peppers, who soppra'd the sata, they gave a damn and were clearly out to make sure that I had the best Italian sub I ever had.
And here's the thing: I think they might have pulled it off.
I can't be sure, but I think that's what happened.
And sure, I want to dock points because they didn't have tomato but you know what they did have? What appeared to be a tomato aïoli, which - Wait. Wait, I'm being told that was not tomato aïoli, that was -
It's like this. [cracks knuckles] OK, we haven't done this bit at all yet in season six. [clears throat]
But the real... [groans]
OK, this is supposed to be easy, this is the part where I just go off on a tangent and make this shit sound like something out of the goddamned Wicker Man or something. [sighs] OK...
But the real... um...
Come on, dig deep, dig deep, you sumbitch! What's in your heart? What. is. in. your. heart?
But the real...
Ooh...
Yeah...
OK, let me feel this...
Ooh.
Fuck yeah.
But the real momma, the real... No. Now I'm just repeating lyrics. Stop the song. We're done.
I'm sorry, guys. I just, you know it was an old bit that we used to have fun with, you know, how like when people say, "but the real star is the _____" and I would do that but I would go off on an absurdist tangent like if I were to say "But the real nineties counter culture icon that got dragged too fast for his own liking into the mainstream spotlight and found that being under the constant panopticon of public criticism induces claustrophobia and a paranoia that haunts every waking thought until he finally self-medicates with one of the most addictive substances known the world over while still succumbing to label pressure and being a hit machine, so much so that his wife convinces him to write his bandmates out of the contract and then, when he announces that he's contemplating dissolving the band to pursue more spiritually fulfilling projects, she kills him and makes it look like a suicide even though it doesn't fool anybody and his legacy lives on but is unfortunately tied to funding his talentless widow's lifestyle and his old drummer turned into a fat clown who appears in any documentary that will buy him lunch IS THE 'NDUJA!"
YES! YES, MOTHERFUCKER, YES! WE FUCKING DID IT! WE ARE BACK!
But you're probably wondering what 'nduja is. I thought that shit was some kind of slang, so I looked it up and it turns out that, no, that's the word. It's also the pink shit I thought was a tomato aïoli. Apparently, it's a sausage in a spreadable form. So, in addition to the mortadella, salami, and ham (all with creamy fat), we have a fourth meat that comes as a goddamned spread.
Do you understand what I'm telling you? The meat is a fucking condiment. It's a three meat sandwich that also has a meat spread.
Look, you know me. You know I don't get that excited for meat. I keep a balanced diet, I remark frequently that adding meat to meat just tastes like protein and iron and salt. But they made a meat spread, and it was really good. You could tell it was there. It added depth and dimension to the sandwich.
Meanwhile, Kath is sitting across from me, upset that she already finished her burger, saying, "I didn't want it to end." I was upset when I finished my sandwich. You have to understand that we were talking about our fucking lunch an hour later.
I will warn you, as I hope you've already taken from this earlier, that this place is pricey. Forty beans after tip for two sandwiches and two drinks. Kath and I both said, in the heat of the moment, that we will be coming back here. And, you know, yeah, just maybe not right away. I think after some reflection, yes, we want that honest-to-goodness craftsmanship again but that price tag is a doozy.
So I will encourage you to give them your money and if you don't have that kind of money now, put them on the short list for later. You probably have a coworker who told you about a place that's "even better than Potbelly" or something. You can bump this one up over that one on your list because whatever that place does, probably some bullshit like putting mayonnaise on the outside of the grilled cheese, it's nowhere near having spreadable sausage status. Go give them your money or at least put it on a post-it note to give them your money.
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