Eating Until I Laughed…Or Cried
:: New Weekly - A Bite of Our Lives, ::: Food
I have a history of perfectly lovely restaurant experiences changing suddenly in ways that I could never have predicted. For instance:
Despite its name, Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas BBQ is located in the San Fernando Valley, which was gobbled up years ago by Los Angeles. The place is named for its founder’s nickname and hometown, and is a bastion of excellent barbecue. In my opinion, the brisket and hot links are the best anywhere. Their taste is so consuming that Hogly Wogly’s probably has less table conversation than any crowded restaurant that I’ve ever been in.
Which is a long way of saying that I’d given this place a big buildup before I took a date there many years ago. We both were young and this was our first time out together, and we barely knew each other. Still, it was a shock after waiting for a half-hour for a table to hear her announce as we settled into our seats that she was a vegetarian. Still trying to digest this news, I reminded politely that this was a barbecue restaurant, with little tolerance for anything that doesn’t moo or oink. But she insisted that she would find something on the menu that she could eat.
Well, that didn’t last long. As waitresses passed bearing steaming, succulent smoke-blackened meats, she grew restless and suddenly she began to speak loudly about the politics of eating. This was not good, as we were surrounded by hungry diners with the opposite view. I began to feel the glare of eyeballs…and I swear, hear the gnash of teeth. All came to a head when I ordered my usual and she tried to order bread and water…loudly enough so that I’m sure they heard her in the kitchen.
Enough!
I handed her a twenty – which is about what her dinner would have cost – and told her to call a cab. Then I settled back and waited for that brisket and hot links…and basked in the approval of my fellow diners.
Downtown L.A. is home to The Pantry, a storied American eatery. In business around the clock since the early 1920s and without even a lock on its front door, at its busiest this place goes through a couple of cows every twenty-four hours. It’s the only restaurant that I’ve ever been to that might have the CEO of an international company sitting at the counter next to a bum. The food’s that good. It’s also one of the few restaurants that I know of that advertise the longevity of its waiters. Some of those aproned gents have been up there on the wall for almost as long as I’ve had teeth. Which probably is the reason that one of them thought that I should be arrested.
I used to play tennis and during the summer I often continued wearing shorts after a game. That was the case one Saturday morning when I headed downtown in search of breakfast. I’d just scored a counter stool when a waiter, who obviously either had a tremendous imagination or was blind, leaned forward and looked down at me for some reason and exclaimed in a voice that was just short of actual panic, “Good God, man…you’re not wearing pants!”
Perhaps fifty forks paused in the air. And then everyone returned to what they had been doing, because the food really is that good.
The Husband @ May 13, 2008
