Over the last three months, I've grown a bit closer with one of my coworkers - platonically, I mean. I'm still with Kath. This coworker tells me things, most of which I won't make public aside from that she met a guy on Snapchat and he took her out to dinner and then to the Bruno Mars concert and she doesn't know his name. One time, she told, not asked, told me to buy her a cowboy hat to match a dress she was going to buy. For these reasons and the several I won't share here, I will call her Hot Mess.
Come on, you don't think Kafe Nasty's name is really Kafe Nasty. Nor were the names of the women I dated before Kath "Lady Pal" and "GF".
Anyway, today, Hot Mess tells me that she found my TikTok and I said, "Oh. And you didn't follow me?"
She says, "Well, I didn't want it to be weird."
Which, hey, legit. That would have been weird if she just followed me. Probably the most not-messiest thing she's said so far.
Well, now we're TikTok pals and I'm scrolling my For You algorithm and this TikTok comes up with this lady in her car raving about this place called Little Birdie. I check out the menu and they have this sandwich called
Charlie 19
Three Lowry Hill Salamis, roasted pepper, lettuce, tomato, mozzarella, oregano vinaigrette
So I have to get that, right?
I figure that since Kath is working tonight and I'm on my own for dinner, I'll bike down to 38th & Nicollet in the Kingfield neighborhood and buy myself this US$19 sandwich, and I'll pay the nineteen beans without complaint, not because my name is on the sandwich but because their menu also says
We strive to provide a fair and consistent wages for our entire team, year round. Our prices reflect this value and there is no tip line on in-store transactions.
Cash tips are accepted and appreciated, but never expected
I like that. They're basically saying, "The sandwiches cost what they cost because we're trying to make sure our staff can pay their bills and, since they work for us and not you, their wages are our responsibility. But the money has to come from somewhere, so the sandwiches cost what they cost." I have zero problem with that.
So I bike down there after work, taking sidestreets because of all the damned construction (and the crackheads at Lake & Blaisdell), I lock up my bike, head inside, and I am swiftly greeted by a person who gladly takes my order for the Charlie. They do not, thankfully, ask for the name on the order, and force me to reveal that my name is the name of the sandwich. She rings me up, it's twenty and change after MN sales tax, and she tells me to give her a couple minutes.
I find a seat at the counter, play two rounds of Toon Blast, and this smiling dude, probably smiling because he gets paid decently, brings me out a hefty sandwich wrapped in white paper. That classic look.
I snap a pic of the cross-section though I should have also taken a pic of the beautifully cracked top crust of the bread and I tuck in and goddamn, dude.
OK, I don't know about these Lowry Hill meats. There was a Lowry Hill capital M Meats for a few years that is sadly not around anymore. Maybe this is a different company, maybe this is the same company and they just closed the doors on their brick & mortar, I don't know. But this place has made three salamis and they were fantastic. I'm going to guess there was Genoa, hard, and hot varieties on this and I have to guess because, as good as these salamis were, banging three salamis together just winds up tasting like one big wad of salami. This was a very good big wad of salami, don't get me wrong, but the nuance was lost on my palate.
The mozzarella was mild and complimented the salami very well but wasn't exactly... It was a strong background player on this sandwich but I admit that it could have been easily replaced by provolone. But I don't think you'd want a more noticeable cheese on this sandwich. You wouldn't want a Havarti or a pepper jack.
The tomato was clearly of the beefsteak variety, too big and sweet to be a Roma, not as large as an heirloom. The big sweet tomato was like - You know how Thin Lizzy had twin lead guitarists? Yeah, that was this tomato with the roasted and marinated red peppers, providing sweet contrast to the meatiness and saltiness of the salamis, which were collectively Phil Lynott.
The lettuce?
It was there for texture, crispness.
The oregano and vinegar were simple accent marks but if they weren't there, their absence would be noticed.
But this bread. Fuck me running, this bread. Crackly and flaky on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. Imagine a fluffier báhn mì bread with a craggy, pretzel-hued top. I wanted to steal their recipe but the two people on the clock - one of whom found time to come up to the counter to take my order, take note, all you tablet-based restaurants - were busy working and I wasn't going to bother them.
The sandwich was twenty beans after tax, no tip required. It was the length of my forearm and you can see the girth in the photo. There wasn't a bad ingredient on the damned thing and all service was in-person; the only tablet I interacted with was to run my debit card. I have new and mad respect for Little Birdie but, we've been over this, I can't justify paying twenty dollars for a sandwich with any kind of frequency. (Especially since I did that twice last month.) (And complained about it.) (I mean, yeah, it was in the name of research but still.) But it's going to be hard to not go back to Little Birdie soon after seeing that they have a mortadella sandwich with pesto and pistachio on the menu.
Go give them your money.
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