Finger Lickin' Good

Our grand outing this weekend was Saturday lunch. I was hooked on having a turkey sandwich on focaccia with roasted red bell peppers at the café around the corner, so on went the jackets and the mittens and the scarves and the proper snobbier-than-thou attitudes that are required whenever one ventures into what they call the Gourmet Ghetto (read the article--it's spot on). Although it's only a few blocks away, we don't hang in the ghetto often (yes, this is generally the good and safe thing to do), but when we do feel like spending money on only the finest cheese pizza, the ghetto is where it's at. Granted, it's always a little intimidating what with all the utter fabulousness emanating from Chez Panisse, the home of California Cuisine (Martha was there last fall), but it does make for some mighty fine people watching.

The place we were headed for opened up maybe six months ago, and we'd visited a few times on the weekends to enjoy a little quiet time in the yet-unknown eatery. We like to sit outside, squished around those saucer-sized bistro tables, and make snide comments about the black-turtleneck-and-beret-wearing yuppies and indy kids who swarm the pasta place a few doors down. (We look like we fit right in, but we're ruthless, I tell you. Yes, yes, we hate because we're jealous...) When we strolled up at about half past two on Saturday, though, every spot was full, inside and outside. Those tiny tables were teetering and nearly toppling with the weight of laptops and coach bags and volumes upon volumes of Foucault and Kant and Hobsbawm. If we wanted that kind of company, we'd go to Starbucks. And so we walked on.

A few blocks up was a place we'd looked at before. We admired its simple menu and forgave its overdone quaintness and "country charm." I'd had a catered lunch from them some weeks ago, so I also knew they happened to be quite good and well worth our time and money. Now, this place is called Poulet. That's chicken in French, yo. They have cute little stuffed and ceramic chickens at the doorway, wooden chicken-head magnets for sale at the counter, brightly colored chickens strutting in orderly rows across the tablecloths. Underneath the chicken painted like the French flag on the window, they advertise roast chicken, teriyaki chicken, rosemary chicken, barbecue chicken, chicken chicken chicken. This poultry was so talented, it did everything but sit in a bucket and leak grease. It was all very Bubba a la Forrest Gump, only without the shrimp, of course. I ordered a roasted chicken breast sandwich. We have no roast cheeckin, says the man with the dubiously French accent. Grilled chicken, then, I say. There is not grilled cheeckin, he says. Chicken salad? No. Chicken in a biscuit? Not even on the menu. I ended up getting turkey on focaccia with roasted red peppers, and Ethan got a turkey sausage sandwich. Um, yeah.

Then we went to a bakery and bought a cookie. And that, my friends, is how you run a business.

wrote Leah at 12:08 PM | Comments (7)