So this is a sad state of affairs.
Joe’s Mom’s Place and Inoteca Vin are both closed. One I saw coming and one is a little out of left field. Both are landmark Downtown establishments, and are going to leave a big void both food wise and location. Some thoughts on both. Or maybe just one. Let’s see how this blue ball of frozen water is flying this evening.
Joe’s had the best roast beef sandwich I have had in Raleigh. Fo realz. With a z so you know it’s got street cred. I was walking home, literally the first week I got here, and saw the neon and the locale right off Nash and thought,
“This joint must be good. Look at the size of that neon.”
And if I have learned anything in my short quarter century on this planet it is that size does matter. Why don’t I have more dates then? Oh self deprecation, is there anything you can’t solve?
Nothing like that neon. It’s like electrified crack. With a twinge of fluorescent after taste when you climb halfway up the fence out back, scoot along the brick detail edge, scale the downspout, hold on to the incoming cable wire while swinging your right leg to get a foothold on the mounts, lean in and lick it. I just tend to walk that way. My shoes have the left side worn down more from trying to stay on course when walking through the afore mentioned square. Sometimes I have to hold on to a tree just to keep to the east. Usually I like to take a breather around the firefighters who always talk about spraying me when I walk by. I don’t think that they are being capricious, I think they might do it one of these days. And boy, will I be wet that day. I hope it’s warm. Or there is a dryer handy. At least once the neon is gone I can walk to the west away from the nozzle without fear of holding a sandwich in my hand within a block and wondering,
“Wham, bam, what the fuck just happened? Where in hell’s half acre did this delicious sandwich come from? You, dirty old man by the fire station, did you get me this sandwich? Yes? Ok. What else? Did Jimmy fall down the well? Pop Rocks have been discontinued? Poppa Smurf got me the sandwich?”
Wow, you are all over the road, dusty. How about you get your ADD under control and look me in the eye when you are talking to me?
“Pop up books are fun? Of course, I agree.”
What’s with the pop theme?
“Pop tart’s have mercury in them? Get out of town, really? You read it on the FDA’s website? Well I’ll be. Crazy. What a second….you sly fox with no teeth….you have neither a computer for research nor money for a white paper rolled deli creation, nor a doctorate in all things pop related. Ok, PHD in Tab, my bad, I forgot.”
They don’t soak me though, just talk about it. I think it’s more of a time kill for them. They can’t move, you know. Bronze. Heavy.
But this night was different. Pluto was still a planet then, until that Rubik’s cube solving mouth breather demoted it to some sort of nebulous swirling empty shell of man it was once was that doesn’t even exist on the same plane as everything else in the milky way and now gets picked on by the other planets.
“Really Saturn? Big words from a planet with a tutu. Yeah that’s right, orbit away. Oh, sure, blame it on the fabric like force of gravity and centrifugal motion physics laws. Like I haven’t heard that before, bitch.”
I got your back, ‘Plutes.
What’s his name? Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yep, that’s the guy. Seriously, it is all loopy in its orbit pattern. So maybe he’s more right than I give him credit for. More like some sort of red dwarf or even a nebula of inert gases. Which I guess is what it is now. But I digress.
So I walk in, and the place is empty. I mean crickets and polar bears hanging around empty. I pet the mid size one, he seems nice, let’s call him….Hamsterbox. He tells me to get the roast beef. I say
“Sure giant fuzzy mammal, but who do I order from?”
He shrugs then says
“Hey for all it matters you can order through me, but I can’t make the sandwich. You know, the fur? Sanitation would deport my ass. Plus, dude, no opposable thumbs.”
Wiggle wiggle.
“Hey the pads are black!”
“Don’t interrupt, I have a small brain and it is hard to string sentences. I just learned english mid way through this soap box rant. What was I saying? See? Oh, yeah. Big knives, meat slicer, bad news polar bears.”
Word, Hamsterbox. Good point. Just as I am about to give up on the sandwich and ride him to the far side of the train tracks, a big dude comes sauntering out of the back.
“Roast beef on sourdough! And put some stank on it.”
Hamsterbox nods approval before ramming his big white head into the wall chasing a cricket into a crack. Damn near knocks himself into the special olympics. Faster than chinchillas they are.
5 minutes flat, Johnny Bravo’s on point with the sandwich. Warm, soft, a bit top crusty on the bread with the roast beef mooing at me while trying to jockey for position in the white run of paper hugging my sandwich. I’m thinking about eating it there, but I suddenly remembered the words my dad said to me on graduation day,
“Son, your mother and I want to invite you to never move back home. Really, we have some things planned, and you kind of stay up late and well, just don’t come back. Oh, and if you value our meal, or your life for that matter, you don’t eat loud roast beef in front of a polar bear. No opposable thumbs.”
Um, thanks Pop? Just a crackerjack job there.
I even scratched his head, no respect. I bid the god given sandwich artisan a fucking adieus and scaddadle.
Never ran into the polar bear there again. What was his name? Hamsterbox. Yep.
That’s how it went down at Joe’s place. Fo realz.
