Out and about in Belltown, I espy a hand-lettered chalkboard in the window of Bambino's, promising "New York Style" sandwiches, including my favorite, beef tongue.
Aha! A chance to write a post in support of a neglected cut of deli meat and say something nice about Bambino's for a change, instead of griping about the lackluster "East Coast" pizzas and the dinner server's tattoos. (Not just Bambino's, either; tats last week at Cucina deRa, too, with a lip piercing thrown in. Is this a trend? I could understand this on Broadway, but it seems a bit aggressive for genteel Belltown.)
Printed menu says all nine sandwiches are served "Pilled High," a typo, no doubt. Anyway, there it is, the Piemontese, $7.90 for beef tongue with garlic mayo on a baguette. I settle in (on a stool) with my book, The Journals of John Cheever.
The (untattooed) lunch server returns. "Um, we're out of the tongue," she says. "It hasn't been all that popular."
How hard would it be, I ask tartly, for the shift manager to simply erase the tongue from the blackboard? Cheever, I imagine, would have found something gracious to say. By coincidence, this is the 25th anniversary of his death.
Could wander a block down Cedar to Mike's East Coast Sandwiches, get a more-than-passable reuben. But it wouldn't be tongue, dammit. Ah, Cheever might say, we are so demanding, so spoiled.
Posted by Ronald Holden at June 18, 2007 2:09 PMI wandered into this place once. The food was tasteless and the service even worse.
M
Posted by: Maisha at June 22, 2007 3:45 PMQUICK COUNTERPOINT: I love it when servers have tattoos. Not only do I think it's cool, but it makes me think the restaurant is cool too. A sleeve rolled up baring a tattoo makes me think my server has a life going on outside the restaurant. One that probably adds to the creativity IN THE RESTAURANT. After all, who wants boring people working for them or waiting on them? Bravo's TOP CHEF, and FOX's HELL'S KITCHEN both have kitchen/server staff with tattoos... and last time I was in Paris, both my favorite restaurants Le Grizzli and Le Bouledogue, had servers bearing tattoos. Has Belltown been soooo gentrified from when I was a kid that tattoos and peircings are considered "aggressive"?
Posted by: David at June 18, 2007 3:29 PM