Po' Boys for a Po' Boy - The Saga Continues

I've posted previously about adventures with the po-boy. Today I continued my journey, by hitting up a local joint in the CBD (Central Business District).

4th Po' Boy: P&G Restaurant on Baronne (no website, as far as I can tell), on recommendation (over Mother's, which I've been told is a tourist trap, but I plan on visiting anyway before I leave since living here for only 3 months I think technically makes me a tourist). I went for my standard po-boy: roast beef with gravy, dressed. P&G is a turn and burn, cafeteria-style establishment - you get the feeling you are being served by lunch ladies while you are there, and, in a sense, you are. On the other side of a long bar with a sneeze guard is the po-boy fixin's, but also other cafeteria items like meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

The sandwich was standard fare, in my opinion. Nothing special, but better than Court Tavern's. The price was outstanding. Our total lunch consisted of two roast beef po-boys, red beans & rice, an order of mashed potatoes with gravy, and one beverage - total cost with tax, $18 flat. For lunch in the CBD, that's not a bad deal.

On a side note, the red beans & rice were bland to the point of being inedible - luckily hot sauce was on the table.

Also, to give another shout-out to Gumbo Tales, the book has a chapter on po-boys and their likely origin, told through the eyes of another Yankee. Next on my list is to find a place to get a good fried potato po-boy - supposedly the first variety ever made.

Jazmine Cafe in Jazztown

I have a love for Vietnamese food, thanks to a year+ spent working with the cuisine. In this regard, I have two tips: 1) if you want to cook your own, Nicole Routhier's The Foods of Vietnam is a wonderful, essential, and simple must-have for your kitchen, and 2) if you are in Cincinnati and looking for inexpensive ethnic cuisine, visit SOng Long - it's a gem in a city not known for diverse food experiences.

The Gulf Coast, meanwhile, has a thriving Vietnamese population, and last night I tried my first of the many offerings in town. We were looking for dinner in Uptown (Downtown and parts of the city further away have many other options), so our choices were limited. Without any recommendations to guide us, we decided to try Jazmine Cafe. I wasn't expecting much - the place was empty at dinnertime, surprising even for a Thursday. But I was very happy with the result.

The restaurant has a nice, understated ambiance - nothing flashy. The menu is almost strictly Vietnamese, instead of the Asian combo restaurants (Vietnamese+Chinese, Korean+Japanese, Thai+Japanese, etc.) that pop up everywhere (and that I was halfway expecting). The offerings are diverse, including the Vietnamese classics: Phở, Bánh_mì (labeled as "Vietnamese Po' Boy", which is fairly accurate), etc. There was also a long list of bubble teas, new for me at a Vietnamese restaurant.

We tried "spring" (or "summer") rolls, phở gà (chicken noodle soup), a Po' Boy, and a shrimp tamarind soup, "Canh Chua Tom", that was incredibly similar in look and flavor to the Thai soup, Tom Yum. The spring rolls were goodl fresh flavors, but light on the herbs (good for me, as for personal reasons I find strong flavors of cilantro and mint unpalatable). My phở gà came with traditional accoutrement, had a wonderful light flavor, and for only $6.95 was a great price for dinner. Emilie went with the Vietnamese Po' Boy with pork, which she liked, though she mentioned that the jalapenos made it maybe a little too spicy. Once again, at $4.95, a great dinner price. The tamarind soup was a little pricy by comparison at $14.95, and Montana described it as "very similar to [Tom Yum], but a little less spicy. I found it a little bit greasy (and the shrimp in it seemed to have picked up the greasiness), but it had that delicious, distinctive sweet/sour taste that only comes from the tamarind." I tasted it and agreed perfectly with her assessment. A nice offering, but not quite the hit or meal deal as the dishes Emily and I had.

Lastly, Jazmine Cafe doesn't seem to have put their website together yet. It has a menu, but here's a map.

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.