Po' Boys for a Po' Boy - An Ongoing Saga

I decided last week to study that quintessentially New Orleans sandwich: The Po' Boy. For three days, my lunch date was with crusty french bread and cholesterol, but I couldn't do it for day 4 and 5 as I had planned. Those will have to wait, so I'll add more to this post as time goes by. I have to pen my thoughts before my memory clouds.

1^st Po' Boy: A catered work lunch. The sandwich consisted of breaded, fried shrimp, lettuce, tomato, and hot sauce. The hot sauce tasted like Red Hot, but was probably the 'on-every-table' in this town Crystal. I loved it with hot sauce, but the bread was not crusty, and this made for a poor sandwich. The lettuce and tomato - with mayo this is known as "dressed" in Po' Boy country - was weak. But it was free lunch, so what can you expect?

2^nd Po' Boy: I was on Bourbon, so I stopped at the first shop I saw knowing full well that I was going to get bad, tourist-trap fare. I believe in calibration, which is why after two straight weeks of eating Tex-Mex in the Southwest, my next stop was Taco Bell.

My guess was right.

The place was Court Tavern Po-Boys. I had roast beef (with gravy, and dressed, obviously). They used standard lunch meat roast beef. The bread was much better than my 1^st po' boy. But the gravy was flavorless, and considering I was eating bread soaked in it and mayo, the trade-off for the heart condition did not seem worth it. On a sidenote, the red beans 'n rice were GREAT, the best I've had yet in town, even though the sausage was on the cheap end. So there's something.

3^rdPo' Boy: Now this is where things start to get good. I upgraded my standards, and visited Lil' Dizzy's Cafe at their Poydras location. I arrived before the lunch rush, but my order still took 30 minutes (not good). I went with roast beef and gravy, dressed, again, but this time with more success. The beef was from an actual roast, not the pre-sliced, nitrate-filled variety at a cheap shop. This had the texture and feel of homecooked pot roast, was topped with delicious gravy, on great bread, and was beginning to be what I expected from a good Po' Boy. And the sandwich was big enough that I had only half at lunch, and the second half was enough for dinner. Now that makes a Po' Boy feel not so Po'.

Alt spellings of Po' Boy uncovered so far: Poor Boy (the refined version?); Po-boy; PoBoy;

I'm learning toward instituting a politically correct nomenclature: "Working Class Person's Provision."

More to come when I return to NOLA - this week I'm back in my hometown, where my food love began. The home of goetta, chili with spaghetti (please?), and Graeter's: Cincinnati.